Little Women

English language

Published Oct. 30, 2007

ISBN:
978-0-14-310501-5
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Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869 at the request of her publisher. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters,: 202  it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.: 12 Little Women was an immediate commercial and critical success, with readers eager for more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed a second volume (titled Good Wives in the United Kingdom, though the name originated with the publisher and not Alcott). It was also met with success. The two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel titled Little Women. Alcott subsequently wrote two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: Little Men (1871) …

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Didn't hit for me

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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.