The Little Women Letters
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Product Description
Review
"Donnelly's "The Little Women Letters" imagines how modern versions of the March sisters might have lived. . . . Donnelly writes with obvious passion for the classic take and successfully applies a fresh sensibility to the three modern sisters. Nostalgic without being deferential, jocular without being flippant...Beautifully crafted." --"Booklist"
Product Description
When Josephine March's great-great-granddaughter stumbles across her letters, the Little Women shed a glorious light on a new generation of sisters.
The Atwaters are a loving, sprawling mess of a family and Fee's three daughters, Emma, Lulu and Sophie couldn't be less alike if they tried. Emma is planning her wedding, Sophie is an up-and-coming actress, but Lulu - the cleverest of them all - is more than a little lost. If life is for living, why is she stuck in a series of dead-end jobs?
Grandma Jo's letters had been gathering dust in the attic for decades, but when Lulu gets her hands on them, everything seems to change and different worlds begin to open up. And even though dark family secrets emerge, Jo's words offer comfort and guidance across the centuries.
Sometimes family is all that matters. And sisters are the closest friends you can find.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a delightful book, connecting the three Atwater sisters living in London in the 21st century with the March family living just outside Boston in the the 19th century, as described by Louisa May Alcott in Little Women. Letters written by Jo March provide a comfort and inspiration to Lulu, the middle Atwater sister, who is strugling to find her role in life. I really liked the Atwater family, especially the girls' mother, Fee, and loved revisiting the story of Jo, Meg and Amy March through Jo's letters. Gabrielle Donnelly's interweaving of the stories of the two families is terrific.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
Am I reading a different book to the previous reviewers? Clunky and verbose, utterly unconvincing dialogue, sentences so long and convoluted one has to read them twice before grasping the author's intent, one dimensional and unbelievable characters... why the previous reviewers have given this 5 stars I have no idea.
Check out this sentence:
'Lulu rooted through those briefly, tracing the long Massachusetts faces of her mother's family as they moved through the last century and more, stopping to inspect an old woman with a sweet expression, wearing a lace-edged cap and holding a baby in a large lace collar, a glamorous younger woman with permed hair and dark lipstick, smoking a cigarette and looking haughtily to the side, a couple of young men in American naval uniforms, and finally, delightedly, happening on one of a younger, thinner Fee, with wild curly hair and a stern expression, waving a banner that read THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL.'
And breathe...
I know the author is British, though currently residing in the States - but the dialogue has an awkwardness about it that, to me, reads like an American trying to write authentic 'English-sounding' characters and not quite pulling it off.
I adore Little Women, so I wanted to love this book - I think the premise is a good one. I struggled on, through the treacly dialogue and long-winded narrative, but just reached the point of no return: a letter, written by Jo of the original 'Little Women', read by the modern day Lulu. It relates the story of Jo accompanying Laurie to a ball, in place of a stricken Amy.
'And, oh, Marmee, I wish you could have seen the dismay on the faces of Laurie's friends when they discovered that the Miss March who was to accompany him for the evening was to be, not the youngest, but the eldest!'
Maybe I'm being picky - technically, Meg is no longer a Miss March now she's married - but would Jo really have described herself as the eldest Miss March? This book made me FEEL picky though - the characters were so irritating and their dialogue so gratingly unbelievable.
Anyway, I've given up (most unlike me). I'll stick with the original books, thank you very much.
Check out this sentence:
'Lulu rooted through those briefly, tracing the long Massachusetts faces of her mother's family as they moved through the last century and more, stopping to inspect an old woman with a sweet expression, wearing a lace-edged cap and holding a baby in a large lace collar, a glamorous younger woman with permed hair and dark lipstick, smoking a cigarette and looking haughtily to the side, a couple of young men in American naval uniforms, and finally, delightedly, happening on one of a younger, thinner Fee, with wild curly hair and a stern expression, waving a banner that read THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL.'
And breathe...
I know the author is British, though currently residing in the States - but the dialogue has an awkwardness about it that, to me, reads like an American trying to write authentic 'English-sounding' characters and not quite pulling it off.
I adore Little Women, so I wanted to love this book - I think the premise is a good one. I struggled on, through the treacly dialogue and long-winded narrative, but just reached the point of no return: a letter, written by Jo of the original 'Little Women', read by the modern day Lulu. It relates the story of Jo accompanying Laurie to a ball, in place of a stricken Amy.
'And, oh, Marmee, I wish you could have seen the dismay on the faces of Laurie's friends when they discovered that the Miss March who was to accompany him for the evening was to be, not the youngest, but the eldest!'
Maybe I'm being picky - technically, Meg is no longer a Miss March now she's married - but would Jo really have described herself as the eldest Miss March? This book made me FEEL picky though - the characters were so irritating and their dialogue so gratingly unbelievable.
Anyway, I've given up (most unlike me). I'll stick with the original books, thank you very much.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I loved this book. The modern day characters develop vivid personalities as the book progresses and the references back to the March sisters enrich the narrative and give Lulu and her sisters a tangible heritage that seems oddly relevant. With lots of gentle humour and an understanding of sibling dynamics Gabrielle guides us through a year in the lives of the Atwaters and I found myself strangely immersed in the everyday happenings of the family as if they were my own. The letters start out as a backdrop but as the book unfolds seem to have an influence that bridges the gap between generations.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I Struggled to Enjoy this book
I thought it would be a book that I would love or even like but to be honest I find the story weak and really struggled to keep reading, I hoped that maybe the end would make up... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ann Gorman
slow starter, perseverance rewarded
I nearly abandoned this book early on, for the first one hundred pages I soldiered on finding the dialogue clunky and the prose very uninteresting. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Sarah-Louise J
easy to read
Nice easy read. The two stories come together very well. I loved "Little Women" as a child, and this book was true to that story.
Published 8 months ago by lizzie
A curl up with a warm drink book - sheer pleasure
I loved this book: as a great fan of the original Little Women books, having a book that touched upon the people as well as the emotions of the original book, but with a 21st... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Sophie K
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