Portobello Book Blog

I’d like to start by thanking Kelly at Love Books Tours for the opportunity to listen to Anne of Green Gables using the relatively new Audrey app. You’ll find more details about the app below as well as my thoughts on the book and the listening experience.

About the Book

Possibly the most delightful book ever written, Anne of Green Gables takes us to a time and place that seems simpler than the one we find ourselves in today – Prince Edward Island off the east coast of Canada in the late 19th century. We accompany Anne, a young orphan girl, through her early teenage years, and we challenge you not to fall in love with her and the world – full of natural beauty, gratitude and wonder – that she inhabits. Narrated by Mary Kate Wiles and a whole cast of actors, illustrated by another Anne mega fan, Weronika Marianna, and guided for Audrey by L.M. Montgomery scholar May Toudic. May’s guide offers historical context, insights into the author’s life, thought-provoking questions, a collection of reviews, a Spotify playlist and much more.

My Thoughts

I have been listening to audiobooks quite a lot over the past year or so and appreciated the chance to listen using a new app which took a bit of a different approach to audiobooks. I really liked the sound effects and noises in the background of the narration. It gave the book almost a dramatised feel. There was mostly quiet music but also birdsong, household sounds, farmyard noises and at one point a loud rap on the door almost made me jump out my skin. There were several actors reading the different parts which again added to the theatrical feel.

Something which makes the Audrey app a bit different from other audiobook apps is the extra content you can access. There are reminders of who each character is and their relation to each other and recaps of what has happened in each chapter. There is also a guide to each chapter which includes background information about the story, place or landscape, or historical information about the times. There are beautiful illustrations and photographs showing for example what the house Green Gables looks like or what fashions were like at the time.

In terms of the listening experience, I chose to play the chapters continuously rather than them stopping automatically at the end of each chapter. I personally would like to be able to see a progress bar for the entire book rather than for each chapter and see what the full running time was rather than just for each chapter. I know this app is still in development though so perhaps that’s something that might be considered for the future.

As for the story, I had never read Anne of Green Gables before (I know, shocking!) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved Anne’s enthusiasm for nature, school, her friends and life in general. Chatterbox Anne was intelligent, articulate and so keen to please that it’s not hard to see why Matthew and Marilla took her into their home and into their hearts. I certainly took her to my heart. She is such a delightful character who always intends to be good and yet keeps making mistakes that she thinks are dreadful. She’s so enthusiastic and honest. I will definitely be reading more of the Green Gables books as Anne is a character I want to know more about as she grows up. Anne of Green Gables is a heart-warming, engaging story and I can see why it holds such a special place in people’s hearts.

Having listened to the book, I can recommend both Anne of Green Gables and the Audrey Reading app. There may be relatively few books available for now but as I said earlier this is a fairly new app and more books will be getting added as time goes on. The various extra elements available certainly enhance the listening experience.

A note from team Audrey

We have developed the Audrey app, where we curate classic and contemporary audiobooks and pair them with a guide, who helps the listener engage with the book in a more meaningful way. The guide provides insights, context, information about the author, photos of the real places in the book, thought-provoking questions, a playlist and more. We also commission bespoke illustrations, and each book comes with chapter recaps and character descriptions to help readers who may get easily distracted. 

Buying Links

Android link – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.audrey.audrey

Apple link – https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/audrey-guided-audiobooks/id1589424638