Liz Rosenberg has done an exceptional job of collecting personal details of the life of beloved author L.M. Montgomery, bringing to light her life long struggles with anxiety and depression. A prolific writer, Montgomery's determination led her to overcome financial difficulties and obtain additional education uncommon for young women at the time.
I enjoyed learning about Montgomery's childhood and how she managed to turn portions of her sad childhood into a hopeful and positive story that still resonates with millions of readers today. Her adult life was plagued with unhappiness and long bouts of manic depression, worsened by her husband's mental illness as well.
House of Dreams: The Life of L.M. Montgomery is a wonderful biography covering the important details of a brilliant writer's life. The book unfolds at a nice pace and gives a complete story rather than focusing on particulars or getting lost in insignificant details.
Thanks to Candlewick Press and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

As a forever fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery, I'm always interested in books about her life and more insight on her beloved Anne of Green Gables novels. This book, at middle grade level, was enjoyable but felt disjointed at times. It seemed as if the author had a good amount of Montgomery's life to share but needed a better outline in which to present it. I tend to prefer biographical material to be chronological or if not, to have a well defined pace, and this was abit all over the place. I did learn some tidbits about Maud that I didn't already know so that was certainly interesting. Lovely cover and the illustrations throughout were sweet and gentle, perfectly matched to content.

There is a lot of information available about Montgomery's life, and Rosenberg does a good job of putting together an in-depth overview of the writer's life and career. Since many of Montgomery's stories are largely autobiographical, readers who are very familiar with Montgomery's work will find this to be extremely informative. It is also an interesting look into the life of one women in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Montgomery was far from the only women not raised by her own parents at this time, and the fact that she was able to get an education was rather remarkable. She was able to get a decent number of teaching positions, even if they weren't exactly to her liking. Her struggles with finding a life partner are interesting, because they seem so atypical of the time. She had many men interested in her, but they didn't suit for one reason or another, and the man she eventually married was not a particularly good fit. By the time she married, she was well on her way to a solid writing career, but she didn't particularly seem to enjoy her extremely good fortune in this regard. There is an informative time line at the end of the book, and this is as complete a biography as I have read on this particular author.

I read a digital ARC of this; perhaps the final copy has photographs? It seems odd that there wouldn't be any.

There are a few things that should be kept in mind-- there are a couple of passing mentions of sex, and frank discussion of the various mental illnesses that both Montgomery and her husband are said to have suffered from. While nothing is graphic or disturbing, some younger readers might be confused or disillusioned. Just something to keep in mind.

This illustrated biography of Maud Montgomery, the author of the Anne of Green Gables series, is a must-have for middle school and up biography readers. Her mother died when she was a toddler; her father left her in the care of her grandparents, and Maud grew up wanting more: passionate love and affection; education; a career as an author. She dealt with anxiety and depression throughout her life, and married for security rather than love. Drawing on correspondence and her unpublished journals, Liz Rosenberg draws a picture of a woman who led an often difficult life and who struggled against her circumstances to create one of the most memorable literary characters of all time.

It's not always an easy read. Reading about Maud's struggle against greedy publishers and her own gold-digging son can be rage-inducing, as is her fight to continue her education against the grandfather who refused to help her. Her callous uncle left Maud and her widowed grandmother to live in horrible conditions, waiting for his own mother to die so he could inherit her home, left to him by his father. But we also read about Maud's devotion to her Prince Edward Island home, her lifelong love of writing, and her success at being able to sustain an income by writing.

L.M. Montgomery was a complex, conflicted woman and her struggles with mental health and financial independence make her more real, more three-dimensional, to readers who will understand and be inspired.

House Of Dreams: The Life Of L.M. Montgomery by Liz Rosenberg is appealing for obvious reasons. I goddamn love me some Anne Shirley. So, it stands to reason that I would be pumped to read a book about the life of Anne’s creator. Plus, the title is totally a play on one of the titles from the Anne Series. It’s not often that I read non-fiction aimed at juveniles, so I was ready to dive head first into this biography.

Liz Rosenberg’s House Of Dreams really does detail L.M. Montgomery’s life from beginning to end. We see Maud, which LM Montgomery prefered to be called, lose her mother to tuberculosis. Then Maud’s father goes off gallivanting and she is stuck living with her severe grandparents. From there, she enjoys her time and school and has close friendships. I am probably messing up the timeline now, but she ends up living with her father and stepmother, that doesn’t work out. So, she comes home and goes back to school, eventually going to college. Through it all, she writes like the wind. She turns down suitors, earns money for her writing, and eventually writes Anne. Meanwhile, she does get married, has kids, and battles depression for her whole life.

One thing I did enjoy about this book were the inclusion of illustrations. The illustrations looked like pen and ink illustrations on my iPad. They were created by Julie Morstad and were perfectly suited to this book.

So, overall, I think that this book could find success with that crowd who is interested in biographies. It could do well with kids who have to write research papers on authors. Rosenberg does not shy away from the darker moments of Montgomery’s life. I will say that I was actually kind of surprised at just how much adversity was a part of Maud’s life. I guess I sort of expected a happier life from the woman who created the Lake Of Shining Waters and such. The pacing of the book, however, is kind of slow. It did take me what felt like forever to get through it. Despite that, this is a decent sort of read and very informational.