A review by ihateprozac
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

5.0

When I started out reading this, I thought it was going to be horrible like Jane Eyre - and I HATED Jane Eyre. But it wasn't like that at all, and despite the fact that I have an aversion to this genre of classic texts, I absolutely friggin loved it!

The family dynamic of the Marches was utterly beautiful, and I couldnt help but wish I had something like that with my own family. While the girls and Mrs March may not have initially been working toward sky-high ambitions, their utter devotion to each other and bettering their home was ~heartwarming. I loved the morality of the story, and even though some of the girls had deviances and succumbed to greed and want for money, they were led back on the right path without the reader receiving a sermon.

I'll admit that I completely hated Amy in the first part of the book, and Meg too, because their whinging and desperation to be rich grated on my nerves. Seriously, they were such little brats and at times I wished it were Amy in Beth's place. I mentioned that I loved the morality of the story and how they all deviated but then returned to the path, but I did get annoyed in the process.

Fair enough that they wanted something they didn't have, but at times it got on my nerves, and I wished they'd just be happy with what they had. As I was reading it, I was thinking that I'd love to give up all of my useless material possessions, to live in that little cottage and be content with my family and my life, even if it just meant sewing all day. I was annoyed at the end that Amy managed to get into that social circle she loved so much, but she did turn out to be a decent person, so whatever. :)

Jo is such an amazing character, and I was surprised to find somebody like her in this kind of text - after all, when I started out reading it I thought it was going to be like Jane Eyre, rambling on about how hard her life was, and how she needed to make a good marriage. But Jo is really an inspirational character, she defied social expectations of her, refused to marry when everybody else was, and she had such a strong ethic and wanted to support herself and her family. That, and she was kinda funny too ;D

I loved this book so much, and I couldn't help but weep over Beth and get really attached to the characters