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rameenlovesbooks 's review for:
Little Men
by Louisa May Alcott
funny
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I was rewatching the 2019 version of Little Women the other day, now I use to dislike it when I was younger because of reasons of costuming not of the typical era and the fact that they changed Jo’s storyline slightly. Now that I am older, I appreciate what Gerwig was trying to do, sort of turning Alcott into Jo in a way. You may be wondering how all of this is relevant to this book, well it’s simply because this is a sequel to Little Women.
Now truthfully this book is not a “true” sequel to Little Women as Little Women is split into two parts with the second part being the original sequel (Good Wives).
Due to popular demand as well as trying to earn money for her family, Alcott was forced into writing sequels of her beloved novel, now this book is by no means a bad book, but it is definitely a book of it’s time, which in a way is very strange because Little Women, the novel on it’s own seems very modern compared to it’s sequel, which is why I feel like this book is something Alcott was forced into into making.
For example, in the original Little Women book Jo was always seen as the boyish one compared to her sisters, she herself said she wishes she was a boy, so when a character like that is previously written in such a way, why do you expect her to act so differently when it comes to the children that she’s taking care of. There is a character in the book called Nan, she’s seen as this younger version of Jo, one for adventure and not conforming to society, now I’m not expecting Jo to inherently encourage this behaviour but it’s weird because it’s seen as a bad trait that Nan has, which can be fixed by playing with the more girly Daisy.
I would say the main character of the book is a boy called Nat, an orphan who was taken in by Jo and the Professor after being left an orphan, like with all the children in the book they feel very one-dimensional, it’s almost as if Alcott chose one or two traits for each child and made it their whole personality, Nat: shy and a musician, Dan: troublemaker with a good heart deep inside, Tommy Bangs: jokester, Daisy: like dolls and cooking, Demi: smart for his age (my favourite of the kids). They don’t feel real compared to the way Alcott has written characters that made them special, the whole big is a big ‘eh’ read it or don’t read do it for the nostalgia not for the enjoyment of Little Women as I did.
It’s a basic plot, with only two moments that gave the book any meaning and the rest is just small stories of life at Plumfield boarding school, now again going back to Little Women, the same thing happened, yet it all interweaved perfectly, almost showing the highs and lows of the March Sisters, one of the reasons why it took so long for me to finish the book was because of how it was almost like reading the year go by with the seasons changing and the girls growing older, I was trying to read chapters that corresponded to the seasons in real life, but this book had noe of that, which is really unfortunate.
Overall it’s not a bad book, but I don’t recommend it to anyone who want something as meaningful as Little Women…
3/5
Now truthfully this book is not a “true” sequel to Little Women as Little Women is split into two parts with the second part being the original sequel (Good Wives).
Due to popular demand as well as trying to earn money for her family, Alcott was forced into writing sequels of her beloved novel, now this book is by no means a bad book, but it is definitely a book of it’s time, which in a way is very strange because Little Women, the novel on it’s own seems very modern compared to it’s sequel, which is why I feel like this book is something Alcott was forced into into making.
For example, in the original Little Women book Jo was always seen as the boyish one compared to her sisters, she herself said she wishes she was a boy, so when a character like that is previously written in such a way, why do you expect her to act so differently when it comes to the children that she’s taking care of. There is a character in the book called Nan, she’s seen as this younger version of Jo, one for adventure and not conforming to society, now I’m not expecting Jo to inherently encourage this behaviour but it’s weird because it’s seen as a bad trait that Nan has, which can be fixed by playing with the more girly Daisy.
I would say the main character of the book is a boy called Nat, an orphan who was taken in by Jo and the Professor after being left an orphan, like with all the children in the book they feel very one-dimensional, it’s almost as if Alcott chose one or two traits for each child and made it their whole personality, Nat: shy and a musician, Dan: troublemaker with a good heart deep inside, Tommy Bangs: jokester, Daisy: like dolls and cooking, Demi: smart for his age (my favourite of the kids). They don’t feel real compared to the way Alcott has written characters that made them special, the whole big is a big ‘eh’ read it or don’t read do it for the nostalgia not for the enjoyment of Little Women as I did.
It’s a basic plot, with only two moments that gave the book any meaning and the rest is just small stories of life at Plumfield boarding school, now again going back to Little Women, the same thing happened, yet it all interweaved perfectly, almost showing the highs and lows of the March Sisters, one of the reasons why it took so long for me to finish the book was because of how it was almost like reading the year go by with the seasons changing and the girls growing older, I was trying to read chapters that corresponded to the seasons in real life, but this book had noe of that, which is really unfortunate.
Overall it’s not a bad book, but I don’t recommend it to anyone who want something as meaningful as Little Women…
3/5