|
I think Little Women is best read at a younger age. I'm glad to have read it to try to understand the perpetual love people have for it, it wasn't something I enjoyed enough to ever want to read again. It was heavy on description and the characters weren't all that deep.
I appreciate the simple tone and wording that would make this book an easy read for a middle school child. Each had her very own set of traits and none seemed to share a trait with another as sisters would. As an adult, I can see the important lessons in regard to friendship, family and finding your place in the world even when it goes against the norm.
I know it's a classic and people love these girls, but they seemed very two dimensional to me. And in the end, the book is ultimately a coming of age story that would be better suited for someone much younger than myself.Reading the book as an adult, I found it hard to get into. It went from slow and meandering in the beginning to an almost break-neck pace towards the end.
While that could allow for each character to be her own person and made it easy to distinguish one from the next, it didn't seem real.A wonderful book for children, but the experience doesn't justify a reading as an adult. I would recommend it to my daughters for it's message, but I wouldn't recommend it to my friends as recreational reading.
Jo, who is loud, rambunctious, hard headed and impatient, finds solace through her writing. He is seen as an older brother to all the sisters, never faulting in his devotion to them, that is until his feelings for Jo grow into something more. Each sister has their own hopes and dreams, and each sister finds their place in the world only after discovering heartache, pain, love, and loss. this is my favorite book of all time, one I re-read every year around Christmas time - nothing will ever be able to compare, even Pride and Prejudice (which is also one of my favorites).Little Women was originally written in two volumes: Little Women and then Good Wives; today these two books are combined, so will be my review. Alcott presents the constant struggle that many women had, and even many women of today, between their loyalties to their family as well as to theirselves, and trying to find a balance between the two. Laurie, the boy next door, finds himself a home he never expected in the March household as he finds it hard to live up to his grandfather's expectations of him.
Amy, the youngest of the sisters, is constantly concerned with how prime and proper she should look, act, and speak, but remains true to her character.
She struggles greatly to find peace within her self and accept herself as she is.
It is only when tragedy hits the sisters, are they all able to come back together, as new adult women.
((this may be a bit long of a review so bare with me - there is just soo much to cover in this book))Loosely based off of her own life, Alcott presents a story about four women who grow both individually and together as a family during times of trouble, turbulence, and peace.
However, Jo is unable to see Laurie and he wishes and her desire to find her place in the world is never greater.You really see the divide between childhood and adulthood when each of the sisters go their own way: Meg gets married, Beth remains at home, Amy travels abroad to Europe, and Jo goes to New York (Laurie is also left to his own devices, first going off to college and then working for his grandfather in Europe).
Meg, the oldest remembers a time when the March family was revered and was not in financial hardships, making it hard for her to accept life as is, all the while being kind and understanding to her young sisters.
Beth, the quite and timid sister, who is always kind and sees the good in everyone and everything, desires nothing more than to remain at home with her family and dolls.
While this novel is filled with girls knitting, needlepoint, and darning (which were expected of women of the time), it goes much deeper than that.
This is a wonderful novel that can teach anyone many different lessons about life and love and family.
Of course Marmee was full of sage advice, Laurie was quite a rascal, and Professor Bhaer was the epitome of kindness. As a writer, I had a natural affinity towards Jo, and how could any reader not be fond of gentle Beth.
However, I also couldn't give it less than three stars because it is such a time tested classic and I could understand why generations of readers have adored it. Unfortunately, I just couldn't embrace this book.
The characters were well developed, though some were more sympathetic than others. For me, personally, I found it too feminine and sentimental.
The narrative was laced with morals and the romantic and flowery language was tedious. Meg doesn't become interesting until she becomes a mother and I never felt much depth in Amy.
While I did care about what happened to the March family and I was pleased with the conclusion, I didn't feel devotion to the book itself because I'm just not the type of romantic individual who can identify with such feminine notions.
The story is very elegant and classic and it's a beautiful story which needs to be told. I'm a big Little Women buff. Some people think Amy's spoiled and a snob, but this is not true. Well, there's the nurturing and wise Meg, the indepedent and tomboyish and strong-willed Jo who dreams of becoming a writer, the sweet and quite and loving Beth probably the best and most perfect out of all of them, and the sweet and michevious and beautiful Amy who is very confident and aritsitic and even though she's a little vain at first, becomes more mature as she becomes a young woman. Like that. It's a classic story about four young sisters growing up during the Civil War in New England.
It's about their hardships and triumpths as they grow up and become women. Their mother, Marmee teaches them that their beauty will one day leave them, but it cannot take their wisdom, humor or moral courage. I love this book, well at least when I was a little girl and now. This book is very inspiring and even though it came out one hundered years ago, is a good story that deserves to be told to the world and to all little girls. I loved this book. I think very highly of the story and I can find a lot of good things about the book. I disagree when people that about Amy, I think she's a sweet girl who is very real.
Lousia worked as a governess, servant and seamstress before becoming a writer. I enjoyed the movie too, though the book's probably a lot better. Amy's sweet and a sweetheart and a good person with a kind heart, and her loving nature and positive nature brings Laurie, the Lawerence boy out of his shell and he falls in love with her. It's by a woman named Lousia May Alcott who lived in Concord, Mass during the time period and wrote about the March girls which were based on her real family. "Little Women" is her most famous book to date. I really like Amy, my favorite character other then the spirted and talented Jo who becomes a writer and makes her dreams come true. I love this book, it's so beautiful.
Please note that I am rating this particular edition of the novel. My copy had forty pages missing and replaced with a portion that was already printed in the prior chapters. The book itself is surprisingly wonderful and easily deserves five stars. This particular edition, however, is flawed. This was very frustrating, and things were only salvaged when I discovered the power of Google Books. To ensure that your reading pleasure is not disrupted, please consider getting another edition of this fantastic book.
|
