Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The only reason I read Little Women was because high praises have been attributed to it by most of my fellow book-bloggers. My first encounter with Alcott was in Eight Cousins, which left me no impression at all. With Little Women, I had a slight expectation that it might have something more meaningful than Eight Cousins. Plus, I picked it because Alcott had influence in Transcendentalism, which I am tackling this month for Literary Movement Challenge. But after finishing it, well, I still can’t see why people praise it so much. It was really an enjoyable reading, and I think Alcott is a good writer, but that’s all to me. It left my mind as soon as I opened another book, and I even have to google it right now to write this review (I finished reading about a few weeks ago).

Maybe my favorite part of Little Women is the family bonding of the Marches. It is always great to be accepted and loved as we are, and to have a home where we are belonged to. The characters are memorable, but sometimes seem unreal. But unrealistic—angelic in this case—characters, like those of Dickens, are indeed memorable.

From the four sisters, I think Amy is the most natural one, for her age. Beth is too good to be true; she is more like an angel than a little child! Megan and Jo are typical contradiction in books’ characters; they even reminded me of Anne and George in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five. It seems that girls are mostly divided into two categories. The feminine ones love pretty dresses, play with dolls, like to cook, and always think about getting a husband. While the tomboy ones like to be called with boy’s names, dislike dresses, and do boyish games. Amazingly their names are always similar to boy’s names… Georgina to George, Josephine to Jo. Plus these tomboy girls are usually hot-headed and stubborn. These childish stereotyping is sometimes annoying!

Apart from that, Little Women taught us to place virtues over vanity, which was the theme of Enlightenment literature. In every event of their lives, Mrs. March always reminded her family to keep praying and practicing Christian values. It’s good, but sometimes I think it’s a bit patronizing. I prefer books that don’t tell us to do something straight to the point, but hide ii between the lines. The finding of the hidden moral is often the most valuable point of the reading.

Three and a half stars for Little Women.

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I read Puffin Classics paperback

This book is counted for:

7^th book for Literary Movement Reading Challenge:Transcendentalism

4^th book for Back to the Classics 2015: A Classicby a Woman Author

92^nd book for The Classics Club Project