Little Women

In this post I will be sharing my next book, Little Women.

Little Women is another classic written by Louisa May Alcott, written in 1868, and is the novel which Alcott is most famous for. 

In this book we follow the March family, living in Massachusetts during the America Civil War. Jo, Amy, Meg and Beth March along with their mother, we see how they live their lives during a time of turmoil and as they await the return of their father who is away fighting in the Civil War. As the girls go on with their lives, they later meet Laurie and his grandfather, who become almost like family to the March girls. Jo and Laurie begin to develop a budding friendship and help each other through troubling times. This novel jumps between past and present, allowing us to see how the girls’ relationships with each other and partners develop. Within the book Jo March, who the book mostly follows, aspires to be a writer and growing up wrote plays for her and her sisters. We also see Meg March struggle being a poor man’s wife, Amy March’s aspiration to be an artist and accompanying their aunt March to Europe and Beth March’s unfortunate illness.

This classic novel scores 5 out of 5 stars. A heart-felt novel with a focus on family and sisterhood, but also has the right amount of love stories written into it without making it the sole purpose of the book. For this era creating a story like this, mainly focused on womanhood and not just a love story was very untraditional but has become one of the best-selling books.

This novel is by far one of the best books I have read. Writing the story in both the past tense and the current really allows the reader to understand and appreciate the characters development. For this time of which this book was published it’s great to read a book that of the time was not solely based on the intentions of the book having to end with the woman finding a husband, but instead seeing a woman work hard to pursue her dream, but also managing to find love along the way. Within the novel there are multiple storylines for each character than don’t overshadow one another, which allows the reader to truly understand each characters’ story.

Little Women has been adapted into film twice. The first adaptation of this book was in 1994, with a star studded cast, including Winona Ryder and Christian Bale. The second film adaptation was in 2019 directed by Greta Gerwig, with yet another star studded cast, this includes Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet. Out of these films I have only managed to watch the 2019 adaptation. Having watched this movie I can say that it does follow the book pretty accurately and was done very well. It encapsulates the jump from past to current amazingly without losing track of the storyline. 

Keep an eye out for the next post!

Pippa