This review was written several years ago and posted on my previous blog.
This book is a classic. I loved it.
I read maybe a quarter of the book when I was around twelve. When I started it again last week, I was instantly hooked.
The story is about four sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy – and their journey from girlhood to womanhood. The book spans about ten years, so you get to watch these girls mature, which the author did an amazing job portraying.
This book is a classic. I loved it.
I read maybe a quarter of the book when I was around twelve. When I started it again last week, I was instantly hooked.
The story is about four sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy – and their journey from girlhood to womanhood. The book spans about ten years, so you get to watch these girls mature, which the author did an amazing job portraying.
I love Louisa May Alcott’s style of writing – she give details, but not too many. She artfully shows, rather than tells, each girl’s personality. None of the girls are perfect – each has faults which she works to overcome. There aren’t any unnecessary characters – each adds to the story. There isn’t really a plot to the whole book, just life experiences of the four sisters.
I liked the book way more than the movie (the 1949 version). There are just some things actors can’t portray – the delicate feelings, etc. For example, no one told Jo that Beth was dying. Jo noticed her sister looked very pale when she came home from her time in New York. Then one day, she saw a look on Beth’s face that told her everything.
The character development is much better in the book, but that’s to be expected since you can’t cram all those little details into 2 hours of the movie. Amy starts out as a spoiled 12-year-old school girl. She then slowly matures into a selfless, thoughtful woman. Jo is a tomboy, awkward and bumbling, and as she grows up, she loses most of that.
Another thing I like better in the book is Laurie and Amy’s romance. The movie makes it look like Laurie, totally broken-hearted, goes to Europe and marries his second best choice just so he can forget Jo. The book shows a slow transition of Laurie’s wound healing and him slowly realizing that Amy is no longer the child he remembered, but a beautiful, sweet accomplished woman. Their romance isn’t hasty, but happens gradually, as each continues to mature.
I never liked the character of professor Bhear in the movie: he was old and just different. In the book, he’s a sweet, kindly, honest gentleman who suits wild Jo perfectly.
Beth’s life is sweet and sad; the chapters covering her last days are poignantly, but beautifully, written.
And scattered throughout the whole book is very good moral, if not Christian, advice from the mother to daughter and sister to sister. One particular scene when Meg is married and tied down the toils of a life of a wife and mother, Marmee gives her the wise counsel to not neglect her husband, to set aside an evenings just for him, and put him first before the children.
And I could go on and on. At this moment, I’d say this book is one of my top ten favorites. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of reading it and I can’t wait to start Louisa May Alcott’s sequel to “Little Women” – “Little Men”.
I liked the book way more than the movie (the 1949 version). There are just some things actors can’t portray – the delicate feelings, etc. For example, no one told Jo that Beth was dying. Jo noticed her sister looked very pale when she came home from her time in New York. Then one day, she saw a look on Beth’s face that told her everything.
The character development is much better in the book, but that’s to be expected since you can’t cram all those little details into 2 hours of the movie. Amy starts out as a spoiled 12-year-old school girl. She then slowly matures into a selfless, thoughtful woman. Jo is a tomboy, awkward and bumbling, and as she grows up, she loses most of that.
Another thing I like better in the book is Laurie and Amy’s romance. The movie makes it look like Laurie, totally broken-hearted, goes to Europe and marries his second best choice just so he can forget Jo. The book shows a slow transition of Laurie’s wound healing and him slowly realizing that Amy is no longer the child he remembered, but a beautiful, sweet accomplished woman. Their romance isn’t hasty, but happens gradually, as each continues to mature.
I never liked the character of professor Bhear in the movie: he was old and just different. In the book, he’s a sweet, kindly, honest gentleman who suits wild Jo perfectly.
Beth’s life is sweet and sad; the chapters covering her last days are poignantly, but beautifully, written.
And scattered throughout the whole book is very good moral, if not Christian, advice from the mother to daughter and sister to sister. One particular scene when Meg is married and tied down the toils of a life of a wife and mother, Marmee gives her the wise counsel to not neglect her husband, to set aside an evenings just for him, and put him first before the children.
And I could go on and on. At this moment, I’d say this book is one of my top ten favorites. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of reading it and I can’t wait to start Louisa May Alcott’s sequel to “Little Women” – “Little Men”.
I never read the whole book, so that's good to know! :-)
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