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A review by happyeverabigail
Leave It to the March Sisters by Annie Sereno
2.0
This pains to me to give this a low rating but I have to be honest in my review. It was almost one star but typically for me one stars are illegible so 2 will have to do. Somewhat spoilery content ahead.
This was extremely hard to read and not very compelling. It wasn’t due to the prose, it was difficult to follow the meandering plot. I put it down for weeks trying to get the motivation to continue. I would have DNFed at 35% but as it’s an ARC pushed through and it was not worth it.
The Plot
First up Amy and Jo: Her and her sister are toxic which is fine to explore per the original inspiration of little women but Amy is such a pushover about it and it’s barely resolved by the end, they still keep secrets and communicate poorly. Some of Jo’s baggage seemed way more compelling, many times her story overshadowed Amy’s and I didn’t understand why she wasn’t the main character. I love the original story of Little Women and this had little to no redemption for Amy, PER USUAL.
Amy and Theo: The whole conflict of their history is info dumped at 10% in instead of slowly revealing it to the reader. This does NOT feel like romance. Theo is still having intimate moments on page with other women (not spice to be clear but Jo running her hand down his nose??) and at 60% was going on dates with other women. NOTHING changes in their relationship until 83%, so many repeated scenes of the SAME.
Theo: I had two major issues with theo’s characterization. He makes a comment about how people need to travel in order to grow and looks down on Amy for not having left the country as if that isn’t extremely privileged and Amy doesn’t even challenge it. Even more unforgivable, theo’s license is threatened because one of his clients might get divorced. This is extremely unrealistic and unethical and makes zero sense. This author loves writing about the realities of working in academia (applicable to Jo and Amy) but lacks in representation for ethical psychotherapy.
The formatting and storytelling:
This would have benefited from first person POV. I really had to think who was who when Jo and Amy were talking earlier on and which one was supposed to be the main character.
Sometimes it seems grounded in reality, sometimes it’s a bit too whimsical, never doing either completely or with a clear voice. Her mother has this random trail of dead husbands but neither of them have trauma from that? It would be able to exist on the whimsical side but then there would be hyper realistic scenes with tons of side character friends and academic talk with references. Everything with the friends was long and a bit boring. This never knew what it wanted to be.
The formatting needs a further indentation. Sometimes the dialogue bounces back and forth without being attributed to a person and the back and forth does not line up (same person speaks twice but on a new line making it seem like a new person) causing confusion. So we’re in Amy’s head and get all the info dumping and her whole life story but when we have theo’s POV he’s an unreliable narrator (still in 3rd). But then some of his secret is randomly revealed at a very low impact moment so what was the point of hiding it from the reader.
This was just all over the place and hard to finish. Extremely let down by what seemed like a simple and exciting presence of a second chance, roommates to lovers with an inspiration/callback to Little Women but this is NOT THAT. I appreciate the opportunity to read this ARC via NetGalley from Forever Pub.
This was extremely hard to read and not very compelling. It wasn’t due to the prose, it was difficult to follow the meandering plot. I put it down for weeks trying to get the motivation to continue. I would have DNFed at 35% but as it’s an ARC pushed through and it was not worth it.
The Plot
First up Amy and Jo: Her and her sister are toxic which is fine to explore per the original inspiration of little women but Amy is such a pushover about it and it’s barely resolved by the end, they still keep secrets and communicate poorly. Some of Jo’s baggage seemed way more compelling, many times her story overshadowed Amy’s and I didn’t understand why she wasn’t the main character. I love the original story of Little Women and this had little to no redemption for Amy, PER USUAL.
Amy and Theo: The whole conflict of their history is info dumped at 10% in instead of slowly revealing it to the reader. This does NOT feel like romance. Theo is still having intimate moments on page with other women (not spice to be clear but Jo running her hand down his nose??) and at 60% was going on dates with other women. NOTHING changes in their relationship until 83%, so many repeated scenes of the SAME.
Theo: I had two major issues with theo’s characterization. He makes a comment about how people need to travel in order to grow and looks down on Amy for not having left the country as if that isn’t extremely privileged and Amy doesn’t even challenge it. Even more unforgivable, theo’s license is threatened because one of his clients might get divorced. This is extremely unrealistic and unethical and makes zero sense. This author loves writing about the realities of working in academia (applicable to Jo and Amy) but lacks in representation for ethical psychotherapy.
The formatting and storytelling:
This would have benefited from first person POV. I really had to think who was who when Jo and Amy were talking earlier on and which one was supposed to be the main character.
Sometimes it seems grounded in reality, sometimes it’s a bit too whimsical, never doing either completely or with a clear voice. Her mother has this random trail of dead husbands but neither of them have trauma from that? It would be able to exist on the whimsical side but then there would be hyper realistic scenes with tons of side character friends and academic talk with references. Everything with the friends was long and a bit boring. This never knew what it wanted to be.
The formatting needs a further indentation. Sometimes the dialogue bounces back and forth without being attributed to a person and the back and forth does not line up (same person speaks twice but on a new line making it seem like a new person) causing confusion. So we’re in Amy’s head and get all the info dumping and her whole life story but when we have theo’s POV he’s an unreliable narrator (still in 3rd). But then some of his secret is randomly revealed at a very low impact moment so what was the point of hiding it from the reader.
This was just all over the place and hard to finish. Extremely let down by what seemed like a simple and exciting presence of a second chance, roommates to lovers with an inspiration/callback to Little Women but this is NOT THAT. I appreciate the opportunity to read this ARC via NetGalley from Forever Pub.