Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Little Women
Little Women
Little Women
Audiobook18 hours

Little Women

Written by Louisa May Alcott

Narrated by Sandra Burr

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

Top 10 Finalist on PBS's The Great American Read in 2018

Louisa May Alcott’s heartwarming tale of the indelible bond between sisters

This treasured novel, drawn in part from Louisa May Alcott’s personal experience, brings to life the provincial yet abundantly full lives of the March sisters. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy manage to lead an interesting existence despite their father’s absence at war and their family’s lack of money. Whether they’re putting on a play or forming a secret society, their gaiety is infectious.

This novel is part of Brilliance Audio’s extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 17, 2015
ISBN9781491553251
Author

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was a 19th-century American novelist best known for her novel, Little Women, as well as its well-loved sequels, Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women is renowned as one of the very first classics of children’s literature, and remains a popular masterpiece today.

More audiobooks from Louisa May Alcott

Related to Little Women

Related audiobooks

Classics For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Little Women

Rating: 4.013261641679824 out of 5 stars
4/5

6,334 ratings183 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How odd to be reading this for the first time as an adult! Somehow, growing up, I missed out on reading Little Women, but the PBS Great American Reads program piqued my curiousity. What it is about this book that, 150 years later, still earns it a place among America's top 100 novels? And now that I've read it, I get it. This coming-of-age tale about four sisters growing up relative poverty in the years following the civil war is charming, sentimental, entertaining, romantic, and profoundly moral. There's a temptation to judge the tale by 21st moral values, which scrutiny might raise some hackles. For instance, Alcott's chapters - each a little morality tale in itself - resolutely preach that the ultimate life's goal of all women should be marriage, that women should be dutiful to men, that poverty and humility are more honorable than wealth and striving. Through the lens of today's standards, it's hard not to cringe a little when Meg saves her marriage by pretending to be interested in things that interest her husband, when the sisters consistently suffer humiliation every time they make the mistake of craving something material, or when Jo gives up her writing career rather than risk offending the sensibilities of a man. But there are also many moral lessons in here that have stood the test of time - such as honoring your mother/father, marrying for love rather than money, allowing men to take a part in the rearing of their children, and treating people the way you'd wish to be treated - and, besides, there's something inherently unfair in judging a book written over 150 years ago by modern standards, right?What Alcott does best is create a lovely, nostalgic portrait of childhood the way we all want to believe it used to be, full of tree-climbing and apple-picking, wise mothers, moral fathers, picnics and family parties, flirting and fooling and make-believe, with just enough work to thrown in to teach responsibility, just enough mischief added to inculcate morality, just enough sorrow endured to sweeten satisfaction, just enough heartbreak suffered to invest wisdom, and just enough hardship endured to guarantee appropriate appreciation of the blessings of friendship and love. In other words, Little Women is like comfort food for the soul: it's not so much about maximizing nutrition as about evoking memories of a happier and simpler time when morality was a little less complicated and we were all a lot more innocent.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is the best audiobook for little Women, I tried several and couldn't listen to any but this, the story unfortunately wasn't for me
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved it so much! I can’t wait to read the sequel. I loved to see the March family growing up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So heartwarming and real at the same time. Beautifully written and narrated
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The reader was very good and I respect her talent. The book itself was not for me. I didn't enjoy the moralizing, antiquated views of women's role in the world. I would not want my daughter to read this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love this story. It allows us poor artists to dream and realize that what we need is what we have.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It is a great book to listen to when your doing your paperoute that you hate doing.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Little Women is the story of the March sisters as they grow up during postbellum Massachusetts.Where do I begin with Little Women? This is one of my top ten, life defining, read when I need to be comforted, all-time favorite books. Ever. Period. When I read this book, I picture a house I lived in when I was ten in Colorado (yes, I know an early 1980s four story split level is NOT an accurate depiction of the pseudo-Alcott home and I don’t even care). I can picture it all so vividly it’s hard to imagine it didn’t actually happen there. I love each of the March girls, although Jo is my favorite (and I am one of the few, apparently, who never thought she belonged with Laurie- no, don’t try to convince I am wrong!) with Beth a very close second (and I can’t tell you how much I ugly cry when she dies- seriously, I use up a box of Kleenex every single time). If you’ve never read this book, I have no idea what you are waiting for. Get it and start reading it now. There is a reason thousands of women have named their daughters after these characters!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book. It was seriously one of the best books I've ever read. My AP English teacher called it "elementary", but it really wasn't. This book changed my life. For an "elementary" book it's deep. This book is also very relatable. I think everyone, both boys and girls,should read this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This classic story of one year in the lives of the March sisters of New England during the American Civil War justly holds its place of honour in American literary tradition. This is really a Young Adult novel and I’m sure that each young or older!) reader identifies with one of the sisters: the eldest, Meg who is maturing into a young women preparing for marriage; Jo, the impetuous tomboy & alter ego of the author; home-loving and painfully shy Beth; and the creative & somewhat spoiled baby, Amy; and events in the book involve all sisters in turn. Each chapter of Little Women contains a gentle moral, espousing a value such as honesty, industry or thriftiness with time and money.I found this much easier to read than other 19th century novels, perhaps because it was targeting a young audience. My edition had several charming illustrated plates by Jessie Wilcox smith.Read this if: you’d like to have a glimpse of the home-front during the American Civil War; you love a story that teaches old-fashioned morals; or you enjoy gentle old-fashioned adventures. 5 starsSuggested reading companion to Little Women: March by Geraldine Brooks which follows the activities of the girls’ father, Mr. March during his enlistment. Note: March is not a YA novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I bought this book at "The Orchard House" in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott lived while she wrote "Little Women". I didn't enjoy this book as a girl, but I appreciate it more now. It was a pleasure to read about young women who are more interested in developing their character than their appearance. The writing style is lively enough to carry the reader through plotlines that are credible to the point of banal. It is also a wonderful depiction of daily life of its time. It is also a feminist novel -- the home is the core of a woman's responsibility, but the home is also seen as absolutely crucial for society. Oddly, I think the denigration of the role of women in the world belongs to a later era.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed the book. The Jo character seems to be held up as the model daughter. It makes me think Alcott put some of herself into Jo.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    A few months ago when I was in the mall and had to wait for some people there, I saw Little Women in the bookstore and decided to buy it to start reading it while I was waiting for them. I remembered reading it when I was a child, but I remembered absolutely nothing about it. The fact that I couldn't remember it should have told me something.As I started reading it, the characters struck me as very one-dimensional. But I kept reading, waiting for the plot to get going to see if that would be interesting. Most of the book seemed focused on the girls' quest to be the best Christian women they could be, but they never faced any significant moral dilemmas or any conflicts that really seemed to challenge them.Finally, toward the end of what was originally published as the first volume of the book, a little bit of a plot centered on Meg's romance caught my attention, but by that point it wasn't enough to keep me reading much farther. I very rarely find myself so disinterested in a book that I quit reading it, but after 249 pages of Little Women, I finally just could not bring myself to pick it up again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Little Women is so preachy in places that it's a wonder I loved it as much as I did, when I was younger. Reading it now, the preaching is more obvious than ever -- though, I still love it. That's part nostalgia, and part Jo. She's my favourite character of them all. Her faults, her temper, is like mine, and she's a writer, and she's by far the most interesting of the girls. Meg is just irritating, to me, and likewise Amy; Beth is sweet, but we keep getting told how sweet and perfect she is, which is somewhat trying. Jo's mistakes are funny and endearing -- salt instead of sugar on berries, indeed -- and she's no saint.

    Must confess, I wept a little, reading this again. Even at points which I've never cried at before. There was something about the family feeling and the way the children try so very hard that got to me extremely, this time.

    One thing I don't like very much is the relationship between Meg and Brooke. I mean, it doesn't come out of nowhere, but I'm just not that invested in it and so the time spent on it bores me.

    I was never that interested in reading the sequels to this. I was content in the picture of the family we get at the end -- the parents reunited, Meg and Brooke together, Beth getting better, etc, etc. So don't plague me with tales of Beth's death!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Summary: No words could describe what this sweet story means to me. I read it as a young girl and enjoyed it, but each time I read it as an adult it instills in me a desire to be a better woman, to cherish those things that are uniquely feminine and a tenderness for the simple things of life that are meant to be appreciated. How I relate to dear Jo as I tumble along in my own "Plumfield" filled with boys and I appreciate her wisdom and this story that teaches us how she got it.Quote: "Yes, Jo was a very happy woman there, in spite of hard work, much anxiety and perpetual racket. She enjoyed it heartily and found the applause of the boys more satisfying than any praise of the world..."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Initially, I didn't like this book because it felt rather pointless. After further reflection, it seems to me that this book is like the precursor to sitcoms; each chapter is like a new episode with new "adventures." It wasn't half bad. Not my favorite, but not too horrible.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I just read this for the first time. I don't know, it was a nice read, however the book was spoiled for me from watching the movie first. I think it took the magic out of it because I knew what was coming. That being said, it was a lovely read and I would reccomend
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Such a great story. I love that I could identify with characteristics in each girl. Never read it until college, but I think it was nice to read it now because I could reflect on how I acted at those ages.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is another one of those "childhood classics" that I managed to miss reading when I was actually a child. I'm still trying to decide whether or not this is a good thing. I think that, had I tried reading it as a child, I would have been just a bit bored by the story overall. But as an adult reader, I find I am probably less forgiving of things I perceive as flaws in the writing.

    Coming to it as an adult reader, I can see why it is viewed as a classic, and I enjoyed reading it, but I also don't think it would really be publishable today. The pacing is somewhat uneven--it seemed that just when things would start to pick up a good pace we would be treated to another "now gentle reader" moment, highlighting the moral lessons we should be learning from the story, and also bringing the forward momentum of the story to a halt.

    I had problems with Beth as a character, mostly because I don't feel she really was a character. Of the main characters, she is the only one whose viewpoint we don't really see. We are told she is sweet and perfect and wonderful and beloved, but the only real evidence we have of these things is circumstantial at best: Beth is wonderful because we are told she is wonderful. Consequently, the major plot points that hinge on Beth all struck me as a little bit fake, which was rather unfortunate.

    I liked John and Laurie and Professor Bhaer, and I enjoyed the romances that came with them (though again, it seemed like we got an awful lot of preaching and moralising whenever something interesting was about to happen).

    I'm glad I read it, and I may very well read it again at some point, but probably not for several years.

    ----
    Some edition-specific notes:

    The Barnes & Noble Classics ebook edition is, for the most part, quite good. It comes with quite a bit of supplementary material in the form of a biography of the author; historical background of both when the book was written and the time period in which it was set; and approximately twenty pages of endnotes and footnotes, all hyper-linked within the book itself.

    I would have preferred to see the information about the author and her history placed at the end of the text rather than the beginning. Ditto with the introduction, which, like most such introductions, assumes the reader is already familiar with the text.

    The proofreading of the ebook text is...spotty. As far as I can tell it was typeset by scanning an existing print copy of the book, using OCR technology to render the text. On the whole, this works perfectly well, but there are a number of places where words are split oddly (e.g. "beg inning" instead of "beginning"), or specific letters were not translated correctly, leading to spelling errors (e.g. "tor" instead of "for").
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Little Women, that classic tale of four very different sisters growing up in Massachusetts during the Civil War, is well known for its warmth, humor, and moral lessons. Louisa May Alcott, the "Jo" of the story, describes the life of the March family with an eye for the funny side of every situation. Jo is the literary sister and more than a little tomboyish, while Meg, the oldest, is almost a woman and takes her responsibilities very seriously. Beth, next youngest after Jo, is shy and gentle, playing her piano and tending her dolls. Amy, the youngest, has the artistic temperament and is a bit vain, though still lovable in her own way. And then there's Marmee, the center of the March household and the standard for moral behavior in her daughters' lives. There isn't much of a plot, as each chapter tells of some memorable episode in their family history. I was struck this time by how similar my childhood was in some ways to that of the March girls. My siblings and I also "published" a newspaper of sorts and got up theatrical presentations for the delectation of our parents. We wrote stories, played with dolls, created elaborate make-believe games, and had a "post office" where treats were occasionally left. We read voraciously, were educated at home, never had much money, and learned early the strong work ethic that has been so valuable in adult life. I can even see some strong resemblances between Meg and myself (the oldest) and Jo and my next youngest sister, the undisputed tomboy of the family. We four sisters are as unique and distinct as the March girls. I guess happy childhoods share many of the same traits, regardless of how times change. Many readers object to Alcott's occasional preachiness. I actually don't mind moral lessons carefully woven into a story, and I can take a great deal of what others may term "preaching" without annoyance. But I object to Alcott's preachiness on a different score. She preaches what she knew, the doctrines of the Transcendental movement that was then popular in their family's social circle. And it's astonishing what they got wrong. On the surface it seems like good moral stuff, and perhaps it is, as far as it goes. But Christ is absent—or if He is there, He's a friend and helper rather than a Savior. The slightest misdirection at the start will change the entire trajectory of a person's faith. It was almost sad to hear Alcott describing her and her family's struggles to be good, to subdue their sinful flesh and improve themselves by their own efforts and self discipline. They completely missed the point of grace; it isn't there to help us be good enough to be saved, but to save us completely, apart from any good we may do. There is freedom in that. An example of this is the ongoing metaphor from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, that of the burden that Christian carries to the Hill. There is no doubt that Bunyan intended Christian's burden to represent the burden of sin; it falls off when Christian beholds and believes in the Savior. But Alcott and her family apparently missed the entire point and interpreted Christian's burden as the general burdens of everyday life, our cares and responsibilities. Biblically astute Christians will see the problem at once: if our burden is our everyday life rather than our sin, that means we don't have a fatal problem that only Christ's sacrifice can alleviate. We are capable of perfecting ourselves. Another contentious point is how Jo rejects Laurie and instead marries Professor Bhaer, a much older German man. I have always been dissatisfied with that, as much as I respect an author's authority over her own characters (and in this case, her own life!). This time I really tried to listen with an open mind and Alcott does a fair job of convincing me that she really did make the right decision. But it's still hard to read about Laurie's rejection and later marriage with Amy. I have several of Alcott's "thrillers" that she disparages in this story, and it will be fascinating to see the other side of this author. The impression I get from the back-cover blurbs is that the author of the scandalous thrillers is the "real" Louisa May Alcott, while the author of the cozy Little Women and its successors is the public persona she created for herself. That seems a pretty huge assumption to make, but then, I haven't read any of the thrillers besides A Long Fatal Love Chase. I definitely need to make time for these in the coming year. Lastly, a word on the film version with Winona Ryder. It's one of our favorites and though they had to condense and omit quite a bit from the novel, they were faithful to the spirit of the story. And Thomas Newman's lovely score doesn't hurt a bit, either. Of course they make the Professor (played by Gabriel Byrne) as palatable and handsome as possible, and that helps too. I wonder if they will ever make a longer version, perhaps a miniseries. Overall I enjoyed this audiobook (read by the inimitable Kate Reading) very much, and I am sure I will revisit this book. The humor keeps the preachiness in balance, and the characters are so affectionately drawn by their author that I can't help but love them too.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Heartwarming story from the family front: virtue, fun, affection, friendship. The worthiness of the girls’ endeavours and attitudes (they channel “Pilgrim’s Progress” to cheer themselves up) which can feel sanctimonious in much 19th century literature, doesn’t unsettle us here, as the telling is done with such gentle wit and simplicity. One sees and feels the charming qualities that have led this book and the four sisters to survive so long in the affections of generations of readers. A pleasure, at times a delight.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read this as a child, but I can't finish it as an adult. I think I liked it when I was 9 or 10, but now I find it terminally boring and insipid. I'm going to have to let it go 30% in because life is too short to be reading a book you dread reading. Too many GOOD books, too little time. The idea for the book was great, but the execution left me wanting.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I know a lot of people who just rave over this book, but it was really a struggle for me to even get through it. The characters had no depth, the book was preachy, and the ideals it was preaching for the proper behavior of women were bile-inducing. I know, I know, it was written a long time ago, in a world with different ideals, etc. And yes, I know Alcott was a social reformer and a feminist. But my respect for her and what she did can't make me like this book any more...sorry.

    I have to kind of agree with Jo's publisher, even though this statement was made as something we were supposed to disagree with in the course of the book...

    "People want to be amused, not preached at, you know..."
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I started re-reading Little Women because I decided that the bookstore needed more book clubs and I was inspired by Atomic Books in Baltimore to begin a Page to Screen Book Club. After much debate, I decided to start with Little Women and we would have a different staff member moderate the club each month. March 10th the first meeting. In the bookstore. In Montgomery County. In the epicenter of the Covid-19 virus outbreak in Pennsylvania. Needless to say, no one showed up. So we’ll try again in April, and as a former film major and screenwriter, I cannot wait to start this club.

    I grew up with a soft and tattered covered copy of Little Women that I read over and over again, so ardently did I wish I was Jo, because my little sister was certainly Amy, and I believed that if I read it constantly, my wish would come true. And she would turn into a kinder and gentler sister, like Beth. That was my wish until my sister had a dreadful fever as a child and my grandmother had us convinced it was Scarlet Fever. And I thought I would lose my sister, just as Jo (well established spoiler but obligatory warning) lost her Beth. And all of a sudden, the book, and the relationships between the sisters, took on a whole new meaning.

    My mother clarified to my sister and I recently that Laura most certainly did not have Scarlet Fever and that Moppy had made an offhand comment about fevers that we latched on to as children, as one does. And in that same conversation, as happens every time Little Women came up, my mother lamented having to share a name with the youngest and most obnoxious March sister, Amy (my mom is definitely a Marmee, not an Amy as I was convinced my sister was). But the lamentation led to an in depth conversation about whether she was redeemed in Greta Gerwig’s film.

    As a writer, someone who has written thousands of unpublished pages of manuscripts across most mediums, I would have an extremely difficult time forgiving a sister who destroyed a single copy of my work. And as I hand write everything, it was, and is, something that could be done. I know I should type it up, but I don’t always. I have milk crates of all the notebooks I filled, binders with printed out copies once I typed them, and right now, a lonely teal softcover Moleskine that hasn’t been touched in way too long.

    To say I identified with Jo for most of my life is an understatement. I’ve always been outspoken and a touch dramatic, the one person who begged her parents for an older sibling (which they always said didn’t work that way until they got divorced and remarried and I got my older brother, and 6 other older siblings over the years to boot), so I could be a middle child like Jo. I refuse to be ignored and I want nothing more than to be remembered, even if just by my family and future generations as I hope to ensure my Moppy will be.

    But one of the defining characteristics of Jo, and Amy, was their competition and distrust of each other. Oh Amy, you troubled, difficult sister. The baby of the family, spoiled by all, including lovely Beth, it was hard to think of her as a character that would ever grow up. She has always gotten dragged for her behavior and actions by readers and I’m often one to jump in on the Amy-bashing, especially given my contentious relationship with my sister when we were younger. While I don’t find many redeeming qualities in Amy in the book, I do think that Greta did a spectacular job of making her a less-hateable character in her film adaptation.

    And as Greta’s Amy changed, so did my own family. Laura grew up, and she reminded me less and less of precocious Amy. I realized we were always more like Ramona and Beezus then we were Amy and Jo. She’s never mellowed into Beth, but has lately begun to encroach on Jo territory, especially that we now have a younger stepbrother and she’s no longer the baby of the family. For myself, the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve found myself drawn to motherly oldest sister Meg, slowly but surely reclaiming my biological birth order persona that I abandoned for many years, content to be the outspoken middle child throughout my adolescence and twenties.

    As a teen, I never really “got” Meg. I didn’t understand why she was a bit vain, and I never thought I was pretty. I just didn’t understand, either, why she’d want to get married – she’d have to give up so many freedoms when she did. And while Meg ultimately made the most socially acceptable decisions in post-Civil War Massachusetts, I’ve realized that she’s now my favorite because those are her decisions, her choices. She makes them not because society demands it of her, but because she wants them. She’s in love, she’s not forced into a match by anyone. Her dreams are different than Jo’s, but they’re still important.

    I had a conversation with a customer recently about if her daughter views her as a feminist because she chose to be a stay-at-home mom. When she was in school, the stay-at-home moms looked down on the working moms, and now it’s the other way around. She was worried that her daughter would think that she caved to some outdated societal expectation, not understanding that she made the decision because it was her choice, not because she had to. I told her that I didn’t think her daughter would think any less of her for staying home and always being there and shared with her a topic that I’d been struggling with for awhile as well.

    I’ve had the conversation with people many times, including with good friends, about the fact that I changed my name when I got married. I have friends who refuse to acknowledge that I’ve changed it, insisting on addressing me by my maiden name because they think that’s what a feminist should have done, kept her name. Few of them understand my choice in changing it was in an effort to carve out my own identity, separate to that of my mother’s as we were in the same field and my work and merit was being questioned as nepotism.

    Meg, the customer, and my choices may fit what modern feminists consider to be outdated social norms, but the point of feminism that I believe Louisa May Alcott is making, is that of freedom. That women should have the right and the opportunity to make whatever decisions they like for their own reasoning, if any reasoning. We should not have to defend ourselves for pursuing our own interests and relationships.

    Little Women has reminded me what it means to be a feminist in a way that I couldn’t conceptualize the first 9 times I read it from the ages of 10 to 14 (I read it twice a year over Christmas and summer break). In rereading and rewatching, I’m reminded of why I love the March sisters, why Marmee is such a good mother, and how I hope to continue to support my own beautiful and loving sister as well as all the women around me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I found the characters too cutesy-old-fashioned when I tried it as a kid (I was a realistic fiction and sci-fi reader exclusively), so I'd somehow never read the whole thing! Greta Gerwig's movie inspired me to finish it, finally.As brilliant as that adaptation is, there are still some enjoyable bits that are never filmed, especially in the second half when they're adults -- like the hilarious sequence where Amy makes Jo go visiting with her and Jo keeps fucking it up. I still find Marmee insufferable: turns out the reason every film Marmee is a holy spouter of platitudes is because she's actually written that way, in every single scene. I also really needed some acknowledgement that these are allegedly poor people *with a servant*, so what does Hannah's life look like when she isn't making everyone a meal at odd hours? But overall, ok, I get it now! This book is great, and deservedly groundbreaking!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A Book That Made You CryI should have assigned Little Women to the category A Book You Struggled to Finish. I read at least two – and possibly as many as four – other books in the months between starting and finishing Louisa May Alcott's famous tale of the four March sisters. While I'm glad to have read the book, I'm also glad to have finished.Little Women is a remnant from just after the Civil War, a book that exudes an old-fashioned Christian outlook that life is a struggle to be endured with one eye always on the ultimate reward. There are no surprises in this book – the omniscient, unnamed narrator too often telegraphs her plot – and a reader cannot help but hear a feminine voice in the narration – first by suggestive chapter titles (e.g. "The Valley of the Shadow" portending death), then by alluding to future events, such as foretelling that a character will behave differently the next time he/she is in this situation. Beyond providing clues as to how we should view a character (e.g. "Poor Jo"), the narrator constantly preaches acceptance of disappointments and tragedies as lessons in how to live a worthy life. But you also have to slog through drawn-out scenes for the outcome you know is coming.I didn't find this narrative style particularly off-putting. Alcott has a way of portraying the growing pains of young people from that era realistically. In the chapter "Learning to Forget," she imbues one character's reaction to an unrequited love with such irony that you find yourself laughing with him at his surprising lack of melancholy.I also didn't find this narrative style particularly engaging. I can see where certain readers would enjoy this story, I'm just probably too old and cynical to be counted among them.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Could be a bit moralizing but overall interesting and engaging story, both funny and sad. One where I can see why its a classic rather than being annoyed by its being a classic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I had just finished The Goldfinch, which was dark and deep and cynical. This was an exactly opposite read. It was sweet, and preachy and good. I though I had read this book before, but if I have, it's buried down deep. Like a good romantic comedy, I waited for everything to turn out right in the end for Meg, the wife, Jo, the writer, Amy, the beauty, Beth, the saint. And it turned out as it was supposed to be. Like a chord resolving. I read it so I can read March. I found I missed the characters a bit after I finished it. I always take that for a good sign.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a new favorite classic for me. I absolutely loved it. This book is like a hug.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've read Little Women countless times, but this is the first time I've read it since I got married. This time around, there are aspects of the human heart that just make more sense than they ever did before.