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This was my first Geraldine Brooks novel, and I have to say her writing is really lovely. She embodies the voice of a historic narrator so much so that I forgot, at times, that this was historical fiction and not a text written in 1862.
Many reviewers said they couldn't connect with the narration or the plot, but I found the story of March captivating. I also found it horrifying and very moving. The war scenes were difficult and painful to read, of course, but Mr. March's savior complex was very compelling for me, and I think this aspect of his character wouldn't have come through without the extreme horrors he witnessed and felt responsible for as a Union Army chaplain.
Having just read Little Women, I appreciated Brooks' take on Marmee's character as well. Her involvement with the Underground Railroad and her great compassion for enslaved people is exactly the type of social justice Marmee would fight for and I was happy to read about it! Her passionate outbursts of anger and frustration in her early years of marriage speak to that canonized conversation between Marmee and Jo in Little Women where Marmee cautions Jo about curbing her anger and how she, Marmee, also had to learn to do so when she was young.
Geraldine Brooks hides lots of other Little Women Easter eggs throughout her novel, and they add some much needed lightness to what is otherwise a darker and more somber family story than what, I suspect, a lot of Little Women fans probably want from this book. This fan thoroughly enjoyed it, though!
Many reviewers said they couldn't connect with the narration or the plot, but I found the story of March captivating. I also found it horrifying and very moving. The war scenes were difficult and painful to read, of course, but Mr. March's savior complex was very compelling for me, and I think this aspect of his character wouldn't have come through without the extreme horrors he witnessed and felt responsible for as a Union Army chaplain.
Having just read Little Women, I appreciated Brooks' take on Marmee's character as well. Her involvement with the Underground Railroad and her great compassion for enslaved people is exactly the type of social justice Marmee would fight for and I was happy to read about it! Her passionate outbursts of anger and frustration in her early years of marriage speak to that canonized conversation between Marmee and Jo in Little Women where Marmee cautions Jo about curbing her anger and how she, Marmee, also had to learn to do so when she was young.
Geraldine Brooks hides lots of other Little Women Easter eggs throughout her novel, and they add some much needed lightness to what is otherwise a darker and more somber family story than what, I suspect, a lot of Little Women fans probably want from this book. This fan thoroughly enjoyed it, though!