Review: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Title: Little Women
Author: Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Independent Reader through Adult
B & B Rating: ★★★1/2

Summary: Little Women documents lives of the March girls-- Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy-- as they grow up in New England.  The girls learn about life, loss, friendship, family, hard work, and responsibility, as well as that horribly complicated thing called love.

Review: I'm just going to get this out of the way right at the start-- I do not like Beth March.  She drives me nuts.  I realize that to many of you who have read the book, seen the movie, or seen the play will think that I'm some kind of monster for not liking Beth, but there it is.  Brenda does not like little Beth.  (Also, I eat babies and kick puppies for absolutely no reason.  Okay, I'm not that bad.)

It's hard to review this book without giving too much away.  It's quite a long volume, and it covers a lot of ground.  One thing that the aspiring writer in me noticed (in a rather envious manner) was the magical way that Miss Alcott managed to keep her characters consistent throughout the whole book.  Through nearly 500 pages and several years, Alcott's little women remain completely recognizable.  There wasn't one moment where I wrinkled my nose and thought "Jo wouldn't say that" or "Amy wouldn't do that."  She knew her characters well, and they come across as real people, not just cardboard cut-outs.

Of course, this isn't always a good thing, per se.  There is one plot points that occurs between two characters that absolutely enfuriated me.  So, being the geekling that I am, I looked up some biographies and informational bits to try and figure out why, exactly, she had decided to do This Thing.  (If you are familiar with the story, I'm sure you know the incident to which I am referring.)  Was it some cruel trick?  Was she just toying with our emotions? I found out that the reason she had things turn out the way they did is because she knew one of her characters so well that she defied the will of all her female readers and went against their wishes to do what was true to that character.

Darn her.

It was a good book, with good morals and sweet stories and a couple of genuinely funny bits.  It reminded me at times about growing up with my sisters.  I don't think we fit the March girls exactly, but there were definitely moments that made me say "Oh, that reminds me of _____."

Not an every-year book, probably, but definitely a good read.  I'll definitely pick it up again.

And guess what?  It's full of food!  Stay tuned for a recipe next week!  (In fact, there's so much food, this may actually go over a few weeks!  Whee!)