As Ever, Booky, book 3 = 2019/12/13-14 buddy read with Hilary.

I love how L.M. Montgomery made her way into the story. So much fun! I love Booky and I love her mother. Willa too!

All seemed very 15 years old (to 17 years old) things, especially for the 1930s: the celebrity idols, the girl-boy party which was equally sad and hilarious and Booky’s concerns, her first jobs including her first real job.

I didn’t like rich girl Gloria but I did like rich boy Lorne.

I’d been so scared to read on but it’s really like one big book.

To summarize the 3 novels: Great and memorable characters & relationships and wonderful humor and touching stories, and such interesting photographs. The sibling relationships throughout all seemed completely authentic. One long story.

The only downside for me (aside from what always happens when I read about hungry people without enough food, especially when there are vivid food descriptions in the books, is that I get more hungry myself) is that these were published as novels but they’re obviously heavily autobiographical, so I’m left wondering what was real and what was fictionalized. I might have to try to look for a good and thorough biography of the author. It took me years but I’m grateful I’ve read the whole thing. For my reread of book 1 and the short story and my first reading of books 2 and 3, I enjoyed my buddy read with Hilary. I’m so glad I got to the whole trilogy! Sometimes when I read books and the main character is young I don’t always like it as much as they get older but this one was wonderful throughout. Great historical fiction. I got such a great sense of what it was like to be poor in the Toronto area during the Great Depression. Despite so much awfulness I envied having so many relatives and so many friends in the neighborhood. There is such a sense of community. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this young girl seeing her aspirations come to fruition.

I wanted to put this on my biography and non-fiction shelves because it’s obvious so much of this content belongs there. There are even real photos supporting the narrative, but they were published as fictional novels and that’s how they’re shelved so I’m restraining myself, even though the Epilogue and story details all the way through point solidly to autobiography. ( )

Booky (Beatrice) Thomson meets her idol, famed Canadian author L.M. Montgomery, in this third and final novel devoted to her childhood and adolescence in Depression-stricken Toronto, an event that has a great influence on her development as a writer. A child in That Scatterbrain Booky, and a young 'tween' in With Love From Booky, our insouciant heroine is finally a teenager here, embarking on an exciting phase of life. From dating to working, there are new worlds opening up before Booky, not least of them the prospect of what she wants to do with her life, once high school is over. Will Montgomery's constructive criticism - meant well, but crushing to the sensitive Booky - prevent her from picking up her pen again? Or will the results of an essay contest - The Bravest Man I Know, which Booky writes about her Aunt Aggie ("The Bravest Man I Know Is a Woman") - convince her that she has important stories to tell...?

As with the first two titles in the Book trilogy, I greatly enjoyed As Ever, Booky, which managed to pull me in entirely, during the course of my reading. Booky is an engaging heroine, and makes for an excellent narrator. The authenticity of her world - the reader feels that she is truly moving through 1930s Toronto - is owing, in no small part, to the heavily autobiographical nature of her story. The black and white images - photographs of people in the story, and of places in Toronto, advertisements for goods used by the characters - that are included (they are included in all three of the Booky stories) further blur the lines between fact and fiction, and add to that sense of historical reality. I genuinely liked this heroine, I found her story both believable and entertaining, and I came away with a better appreciation of the harsh realities of the Depression. Highly recommended, together with it two predecessors, to all young readers who enjoy good historical fiction! ( )

In the final installment of the Booky trilogy, Beatrice Thomson (also known as Booky) is now a teenager, and part of [b:As Ever, Booky|647638|As Ever, Booky (Booky, #3)|Bernice Thurman Hunter|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328278538s/647638.jpg|633782] describes typical teenage pursuits (dating, movie star crushes, Booky's first real job etc.). Beatrice even gets to meet famous Canadian author L.M. Montgomery, whose advice, although basically constructive, is devastating at first (that Booky should practice writing, but that she would also require a college/university education to further develop her writing talent and skills). Beatrice knows that neither she nor her family would ever be able to afford university or college tuition (not even her brilliant and talented sister Willa had been able to attend university or college, and scholarships and bursaries are simply not available). Will Montgomery's advice stifle Booky's ambition, will her suggestions stop our narrator from pursuing her dream of becoming a writer, an author?

I enjoyed [b:As Ever, Booky|647638|As Ever, Booky (Booky, #3)|Bernice Thurman Hunter|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328278538s/647638.jpg|633782] almost (but not quite) as much as the first two novels (I have to admit that the detailed descriptions of Booky and her friends' crush on Deanna Durbin were a bit monotonous for me, but that is likely because I have never really had crushes on movie actresses and actors, most of my adolescent crushes were literary ones). Booky remains a lovable, engaging, astutely observant narrator; that Beatrice Thomson has a talent for writing is wonderfully and authentically demonstrated by and through her narration, her observations. And the fact that her little brother (snooping in his sister's diary) finds said diary more entertaining, more readable than The Western Boy not only further underlines that authenticity, it also lastingly demonstrates to Booky that she does, indeed, have talent, that she is meant to be, to become a writer (even more than winning the essay contest, I believe). Showing both humour and pathos, both triumph and tragedy, [b:As Ever, Booky|647638|As Ever, Booky (Booky, #3)|Bernice Thurman Hunter|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328278538s/647638.jpg|633782] is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy and highly recommended for children who enjoy authentic, realistic historical fiction. However, the book should be read in conjunction with the first two books, [b:That Scatterbrain Booky|1426406|That Scatterbrain Booky (Booky, #1)|Bernice Thurman Hunter|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328020606s/1426406.jpg|1416886] and [b:With Love From Booky|647637|With Love From Booky (Booky, #2)|Bernice Thurman Hunter|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328021153s/647637.jpg|633781] (this is a book that really and truly needs to be read as part of a series, to not read the other two books would mean only getting, only reading part of the story). ( )