March by Geraldine Brooks
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Book Reviews of March
Book Review: Unanimous favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was a big hit with my book club. Well-developed, interesting characters and a good story. Good historical fiction by an accomplished writer.Book Review: "Little Women" From Anothor P.O.V
Summary: 5 Stars
"Little Women" is one book that is a big sentimental favorite with me. It's the first book I reviewed for Amazon and I still re-read it occasionally,because it's like visiting an old friend. I think Ms. Brooks has done a wonderful job with her back-story of Mr. March,the family patriarch,who is really a minor character in the original. He is shown as a highly idealistic man(especially for the times he lived in) A strict vegetarian,extremely intelligent ,unique in his spirituality(the real-life father was a Transcendentalist.) I also really liked how "Marmee" is portrayed. Almost saintlike in "LW",here she is shown as a smart,intense woman. Outspoken and at times,very temperamental,yet still likable,much like her daughter,Jo. Finally this book truly shows the horrors of war and slavery,a subject the original book lightly touched upon,as the LW was written a book for children,girls in particular. I wouldn't reccomend this book to anyone younger than 12 or 13 as there is a lot of graphic depictions of Slavery and the war itself,the injured especially,that are a far cry from Alcott's genteel writing. Overall,I found this book a fast,fascinating read and both a plausible and worthy successor to the original story.Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
I am not going to create a long rehashing of the novel -- but I do want to voice my feelings about the hazards of anyone other than the author creating a sequel to a well-loved book. My interpretations of the characters of Marmee and Mr. March were and are very different from those of Miss Brooks. I object to her entire concept. In her afterword, the author states that her mother told her that no one could be such a goody-goody as Marmee -- how wrong she is. I have known many people who are not saints or " goody-goodies" but truly try to live the best lives possible and succeed admirably. Instead of tampereing with characters who are well-loved from a book that many hold dear, why does the author not creat her own story about the Civil War era and not try to capture a ready-made audience of another author? Book Review: Essentially soft porn, and astonishingly dreadful!
Summary: 1 Stars
Who knew? The reviews were glowing and the descriptions of the book seemed dull enough to ensure the sort of respectability that clings to serious historical fiction. Oh, but the book is really awful, complete with the beautiful, mixed race house slave (actually the daughter of the plantation owner) stripped bare and publicly lashed because of Mr. March's actions when he was an innocent young peddler. It makes the reader--or this reader--cringe with embarrassment. There's nothing literary about this book; it's along the lines of Robert Penn Warren's terrible novel BAND OF ANGELS. If you're determined to read fiction in this vein go straight to GONE WITH THE WIND, which is, in fact, a serious and pretty successful effort to capture an era. And, while you're at it, pick up a copy of Robert Penn Warren's ALL THE KING'S MEN. Book Review: A good read with an interesting spin on an old story
Summary: 4 Stars
As others have said this is the story of the father of the Little Women girls. Not a character I had ever thought much about but I have to admit that I liked this book very much. It was an easy read that really captured an interesting time in history. Brooks is a good writer whose prose vividly paints Civil War battlefields, Washington D.C. during the war and the gruesomeness of battle. It's also short enough to read on a long flight or a weekend vacation.