Reviews - Little Women | The StoryGraph

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23.1k reviews for:

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott

4.1 AVERAGE

rikinkaaa's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

fantasyreads666's review against another edition

3.0

hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

While I did like this book, I always had to remember myself of the time it was written in. It is more or less a relaxing read, but there are many parts ( mostly when there is talking about women and how they have to act etc) where i had to remember how old the book is.
I did like Beth, although she was kind of simple. Meg and Amy are both reasonable characters that Act their age and Status, which is why i liked them most. I did not like Jo that much. I liked how she didnt want to fit into the society and be a " proper" Lady, but she was almost always jelouse and mean towards the others and often acted as if she was more important.
I did not realy like the March parents, since they always acted as if every single normal Emotion was bad ( wanting to not be poor, always saying they were rich in family and shouldnt want more)
Another thing that botherd me, was how they where portrayed as beeing poor, but they had a servent, food and definitly no money problems if we also think about the aunt

ruhh's review against another edition

5.0

emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

saranovella's review against another edition

4.75

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

cgschenke27's review against another edition

4.25

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

abigailhaagen's review against another edition

3.25

hopeful

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

valhersa29's review against another edition

3.0

I’m writing this review years after reading this book, and I only remember the sister who liked books. Yet I remember myself enjoying the story even if I read it when I wasn’t in the age to read a classic. Even so, it’s entertaining and a good classic.

wlwhitehead's review against another edition

2.0

Louisa May Alcott--a well-known abolitionist, suffragist, and the daughter of transcendentalist parents--is often also thought of as an early writer of feminist works. To be fair, there are feminist aspects to this work which, when it was written in 1868-1869, would have been forward thinking. Certainly, the book does a good job of injecting modernism into popular writing at the time; it was published in serial so as to attract a paying audience, it uses "vulgar" common language like "ain't" and "don't" for "doesn't", and it contains tableaus in granular detail of the daily domestic life of white middle-upper class women, which was unusual at the time of publication. These details are not, however, enough for the book to retain the feminist label to a lay reader in 2025, which is when I read the book. I found the book rife with the separation of spheres of influence, gendered character attributes, white saviorism, and socio-economic classism. At times, I also found it tedious to read. And yet I'm glad I finally read it since it's an important aspect of late 1860s publishing that's managed to stay present in popular culture one hundred and fifty years after its initial publication (e.g. the 2019 Little Women movie starring Saorise Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, and Florence Pugh). I hesitate to say this is a book best enjoyed by younger readers because, really, why subject such a sexist and classist book on young people?