A review by aejohnson85
Meg and Jo by Virginia Kantra

2.0

As a longtime fan of the original Little Women, this book was not for me. It is touted as being a “modern retelling”...but I didn’t recognize much from the original, other than the characters sharing names. In my opinion, the author is using the popularity of the original and these beloved characters to sell books. I have a hard time believing it would be much of a seller without the March sisters names. It is a fairly uneventful book without the inclusion of the Marches.

A few things that really rubbed me the wrong way: For some reason, the setting has been changed from New England to North Carolina, Professor Eric Bhaer is now a chef(?)...Jo is a glorified line cook who writes a food blog (?), Laurie (sorry, he’s Trey in this *eyeroll*) has little point and is more a “bro” than the Laurie of Alcott’s original book...and Beth? Beth is (first of all, alive...) an aspiring country singer. Yes. You read that correctly. Shy, reserved Beth is on tour with a country singer....we don’t get much of her storyline but I suspect that is due to the follow up sequel based on Beth and Amy. I will certainly not be picking this one up.

This is certainly not a retelling and I find it hard to even believe it is based upon Little Women, other than character names. If you love the original as I do, don’t waste your time.