388 pages

English language

Published Feb. 24, 2002 by Gramercy books.

ISBN:
978-0-517-22116-7
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OCLC Number:
49259981

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No rating (1 review)

Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young ladies in mid-nineteenth-century New England.

120 editions

reviewed Little Women (Little Women, #1) by Louisa May Alcott (Little Women, #1)

Didn't hit for me

No rating

So. I didn't like this book very much, but this is a bit of an annoying review to write. The reasons why I don't like this book are not really something I can fault the author, as they're pretty much to be expected for a book written in this time period.

Shortly put, like many older examples of children's lit, I find Little Women to be overly didactic and twee, with the added difficulty of disagreeing with some of the moral lessons it tries to teach.

I can see the value it must have had in its time, as well as to some readers, in portraying girls with interesting inner lives and conflicts, who did not always entirely fit the gender norms. It was, in that sense, an interesting bit of insight in the time period. But as an adult modern reader I couldn't really connect with it.

Subjects

  • Family life -- New England -- Fiction
  • Sisters -- Fiction
  • New England -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction