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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
"March" was a difficult read for me. I found the beloved father of my good friends Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy to be a boring and annoying man. The story read like the moral tracts of the Victorian age -- I was vividly reminded of "Black Beauty" -- with one eye-opening moral failure after another. Marmee is painted as a termagant with hardly any self control when her moral passions are aroused. I did learn a few things about the early days of the Civil War but not enough to justify the time it took to plow through this book. The writing was good, the research excellent.
The story of Mr. March, the absent father in Little Women, and his experience off at war. Makes me want to read Little Women again.
Interminably slow with one of the least sympathetic main characters I've ever encountered.
While his wife and four daughters remain at home in Concord, Massachusetts, Mr. March enlists in the Union Army as a chaplain during the Civil War. Keeping in touch with his family by letter, he tries to shield them from the circumstances and the brutality of war in which he finds himself.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
was just ok, it was an account of the Little women's father and where he went when he was gone,
A little slow getting started, but I really liked this book. It added a lot of complexity and depth to the characters of Mr. & Mrs. March from Little Women.
One of the most insipid, irritating narrators I've encountered in literature.
A fair disclaimer to start the review, I have yet to read Little Women (though it has been on my TBR for a minute now). In fact, I didn't know this was based on any part of that novel going into it and didn't find out about it until about 1/3 of the way through when enough clues had really hit me to look it up.
That said, I found little about this work I really liked, it came offly close to a 1* review for me. I didn't really love much of what the main narrator has to say or actions. His relationships and interactions with those around him aren't really all that gripping and many of the pieces it sets up lack punch when they come through. I just really didn't enjoy much here.
The author clearly put in serious work to make it a believable portrait of the Virginia area right before and in the earlish period of the Civil War behind the frontlines (or, at least, mostly behind them). Pulling from many primary sources and high quality scholarship from experts and I do highly appreciate it. This type of "historical fiction" (a term I loath by-the-by but one I've seen associated with this so be it) is just extremely difficult to do right. This novel does better than most at representing the period but falls flat in the more literary portions of it.
That said, I found little about this work I really liked, it came offly close to a 1* review for me. I didn't really love much of what the main narrator has to say or actions. His relationships and interactions with those around him aren't really all that gripping and many of the pieces it sets up lack punch when they come through. I just really didn't enjoy much here.
The author clearly put in serious work to make it a believable portrait of the Virginia area right before and in the earlish period of the Civil War behind the frontlines (or, at least, mostly behind them). Pulling from many primary sources and high quality scholarship from experts and I do highly appreciate it. This type of "historical fiction" (a term I loath by-the-by but one I've seen associated with this so be it) is just extremely difficult to do right. This novel does better than most at representing the period but falls flat in the more literary portions of it.