Louisa May Alcott Summer Reading Challenge Week 3
Great or Nothing
by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spottswood
Young Adult Historical Fiction/Women's Fiction
As a standalone story about sisters grieving the loss of their wonderful, perfect, GOOD sister and coming to terms with the changes WWII brings to their lives, this is a pretty decent novel. As a standalone queer romance, it's a cute short story.
What I liked:
The historical details about how WWII affected the people on the homefront. The families left behind, the Japanese-Americans eager and willing to fight but incarcerated because of their race, the young women forging their own paths in life for the first time. This was well done. I also liked the incorporation of the minor subplots about Japanese-Americans and the racism they faced. The history of the Red Cross Clubmobile program was also fascinating. I knew about the Salvation Army doughnut girls but not the WWII Clubmobile program. I somehow missed that in my research into food during the World Wars. Try molasses doughnuts for an authentic taste.
I liked seeing the characters grow in confidence, except Amy.
I really liked Charlie. I relate more to her than Jo because Charlie is far more like the original Jo March. She's feisty, determined and fearless! I wholeheartedly agree about the women in the military auxiliary services. Only NOW, after most of them are dead, can they be buried at Arlington. I totally don't buy into the rhetoric of focusing only on the rah rah rah hooray for America stuff. I appreciated the relationship between Charlie and Peg though and understand Peg's view of the situation. They were much more like Jo and Meg, even their names. Meg and Peg are both nicknames for Margaret and of course Charlie is a masculine sounding nickname like Jo. I especially enjoyed the budding relationship between Jo and Charlie. They have a lot in common and bond over those commonalities. While Charlie is confident in who she is, Jo is still struggling to figure out what she wants.
I also found Doro a lot like Jo, more than the Jo that is presented here. A student at the high school where Meg is a teacher, Doro is a force to be reckoned with. She's angry and raging at the world. Life has been unkind to her and she's a teenager so it's extra tough. Her story is sad and I know she's not the only one going through that. I'm sure there will be others at school too. I LOVE the way Meg helps Doro deal with her rage. It's similar to how Marmee offers her wise counsel to Jo with her "I'm angry every day of my life" speech. It's a great scene because it also helps Meg deal with her own rage against the world.
Unlike many reviewers, I enjoyed Beth's poems from beyond the grave. Poetry isn't my thing and blank verse is weird but Beth recapped some of the events from Little Women Part I to help jog readers' minds. It also shows a different side of Beth, what she was really thinking and feeling. It makes her less of a saint and more human. I also appreciate how she shares that she can't protect anyone she loves even though she wishes she could but she'll be there with them in spirit. That's a very sweet thought and I often imagine my loved ones with us still, watching and celebrating or helping us along the way. My sister has actually experienced evidence of that first hand so I'm buying Beth's beyond-the-grave plot.
All of this would have made a great novella! Even Jo's story would have made a good short story. Meg's story paired with it would be a good novella.
What I do not like is ...
As an adaptation of Little Women, it fails majorly. It goes on too long and the authors completely misinterpreted their characters. It lacks Marmee's wise counsel and that warm, cozy feeling that makes all of us want to be March sisters.
The story is filled with inconsistencies. The second part of Little Women covers Beth's final illness and death. This occurs AFTER Meg has married John and had the twins, AFTER Jo was in New York and while Amy is in Paris. In this reimagining, Beth is dead and she was apparently the glue that held the sisters together so now they've argued and scattered. There are also references to Father losing his money in the stock market crash of '29 but also references to Father being like Bronson Alcott and not being able to support his family. MANY MANY MANY people lost their money in the stock market crash. That's not Mr. March's fault. Even 1860s Father March is based more on Ralph Waldo Emerson than on Bronson Alcott.
I do not like these March sisters much. These sisters are mean and nasty to each other. They fight, they lie and hold grudges. They're grown adults not teenagers and they still act like they're 13-17. It went on too long and wasn't really concluded. Apparently in this universe, Beth was the glue that held them together and without her, they come undone. This is completely off.
Little Women is about sisters and the bond between them. Family was everything to Louisa May Alcott. If it wasn't, she would have ran away from home, disguised herself as a man and fought in the Civil War. If Louisa wasn't all about family, she wouldn't have literally worked herself to death trying to support them all because her lazy father was too noble to work. Little Women is about sisterhood. The sisters share an unbreakable bond. Yes they have their differences and even fight but when Amy fell through the ice, Jo realized her temper nearly killed her sister. Marmee's wise counsel helped Jo curb her temper. At the end of the day, the sisters are sisters. They fight sometimes but they love each other. They grow closer as adults after Beth's death, realizing life is precious and ambition is great but family is more important.
In the original novel Meg is happy with her choices to become a wife and mother. She wants those things, it's not just what's expected of her. In this version, Meg wants those things too but she's also a school teacher and a good one. She's making a difference in the lives of children who need her. They attend a regular old public school and don't always pay attention to what she's teaching but she begins to see the difference as she befriends a student named Doro.
Still, Meg wants to get married. She's the one stuck at home with Marmee and she's the one trying to put on a brave and happy face for everyone. Sometimes she resents her sisters for leaving home and leaving her behind. This is not the Meg March I know. The Meg March I know was happily married and a mother by this time. This Meg sounds more like Jo.
There's a whole chapter replicating the "Meg Goes to Vanity Fair" chapter in the original which Beth helpfully points out. Didn't Meg learn her lesson the first time? In this story she runs into a fellow teacher and not Laurie which makes her embarrassed and ashamed. This part does not equal the part in the original where Meg buys a new dress at the encouragement of Sally, even though she knows she can't afford it. Meg finally learns to be content with what she has at that point thanks to a loving and patient husband. This Meg still isn't quite sure. There's also a chapter than mirrors the original when Aunt March gives Meg a hard time about getting engaged to a poor man. Like the original, it spurs Meg into realizing she knows what she wants. At that point in the novel it just doesn't make sense because the timeline is way off. Sallie Gardiner is a classic mean girl.
Meg and Jo apparently had a huge fight. We never really learn what it was about, just Meg's inability to see Jo. They apparently fight over their life choices. Meg wants marriage and not a career while Jo wants ....??? They're supposed to be super close and tell each other everything so why doesn't Meg know what's in Jo's heart? Jo can NOT love Laurie enough to want to be his girl. That's tough because it's wartime but can't Meg see that he's their brother and Jo's bestie and not a love interest? If they're really that close, she should know that. Then Amy interferes and Jo snaps at Amy and Amy rebels.
I don't read Jo as queer. I don't have a problem with a queer romance story or a story inspired by Jo March but not a direct adaption. There are good reasons she rejects Laurie's proposal. 1)They're too young. He's just finished school, he's kind of lazy and doesn't do anything to support a family. NO ONE in the March family is pressuring Jo into marrying him. That's just a bad idea. 2)They're like siblings. She thinks of him as a boy, a brother, a friend. 3)They're too much alike. Amy flatters Laurie's ego and lets him think he's hot stuff. Jo tells it like it is and they'd never get along. 4) Jo is freaking out because her sisterhood is about to be broken up and OMG that means she'll be the eldest and now she has to be an adult and nothing will be the same and 5)MOST IMPORTANTLY Louisa wanted Jo to be her alter ego- "a literary spinster content to paddle her own canoe." I wish someone would do it right and leave Jo as she is with her ambition and her pen. No need for romance.
Jo doesn't become a duller version of herself as she ages (see Anne Shirley for THAT, she grows up, she matures, she stops acting like a child. Jo learns to control her temper but that doesn't mean she isn't still angry, like Marmee. Jo learns from life experience about what she wants and what she doesn't. She learns her limitations. She can be great, she just needs time.
Jo matures and grows as the novel goes on and after her time in New York, she returns home and must become the adult of the family as Marmee and Father do not see Beth's illness for what it is. After Beth's death Jo returns to writing with the encouragement of her family. She's gotten to know herself better and grown up. She misses all her sisters and grieves for their lost childhood. Enter Professor Beher. He knows how she's feeling and what's in her heart. He's a good man and helps Jo become a better woman. Marmee, Meg and Amy see what's going on right away and even Laurie figures it out quickly. They all support Jo.
I also don't see Jo giving up her writing just because she can't find someone to publish her stories. She doesn't in the original, she just changes direction. Is Jo changing direction in this novel? Not really. She's running away from her problems, her fears and her own feelings. Working in a factory makes her too busy and tired to think. That's not healthy. She needs a Professor Beher to help her find her way. Enter Charlie, her boarding house mate's sister. Charlie is a lot like Jo. She sees Jo, she understands Jo and pushes Jo to be a better writer and better sister but it doesn't quite ever reach the level of interaction between Jo and Fredrich Beher. There needs to be more to the story. I wish Charlie had been introduced sooner and interacted with Jo more.
I don't like angry, angsty Jo. In the original, Jo is a straight shooter. She tells it like it is and doesn't shirk her duty. She tells Laurie why she doesn't want to marry him. She goes to New York to get away from home and gain life experience and mature a bit. This Jo is just running away. Yes it's scary and I get it but I find it incredibly hard to believe that in this alternate 1940s story, Meg and Marmee wouldn't know who Jo is and why she can't love Laurie like that even if Jo doesn't know herself. I'm reasonably certain my mother and siblings wouldn't bat an eyelash if it were me. I would, however, and have, argued with my sister about her choice to marry and raise a family. Today women have more options. In the 1940s not so much and in the 1860s none at all. I don't see Meg and Jo having such a big argument.
Amy is the worst of all. She's still bratty. At 16, she's tired of being left out of her sisters' lives. Now she's the only young one without Beth. She's angry at her older sisters and mad because Jo considers Amy a snoop. In this case, it's untrue but Amy probably was like that when she was younger. Instead of talking to Marmee or to Meg, who in the original always takes Amy's side, she decides to run away herself and PROVE to her sisters she's grown up. In her mind, she seems to imagine everyone else still at home. She doesn't seem to know Jo and Father are away. In Amy's mind she's still the baby of the family and won't they be surprised when she comes home. Amy does all kinds of wrong things. She's not all that likable. Amy lies about her identity and lies to her family about where she is! Her ruse is so elaborate and she involves her cousin which could potentially get Flo in serious trouble. Amy joins the Red Cross in London where it's dangerous. If she's killed her family will never know where she is. That's just horrible! Marmee and Father already lost one child, why put them through that again?
In London, Amy befriends Edie, who seems to be a troubled soul, determined to be a bad seed. She's a bad influence on Amy who is already a horrible person. While the Red Cross is not the military, there are rules and regulations and rules for a reason! They are NOT there to go all "khaki wacky" over the soldiers. (There's a reason why Dorothea Dix set the rules for nurses in the Civil War being 30+ and ugly).
The two younger girls are horrible to their supervisor, Marion. I guessed Marion's secret pretty quickly. Edie is incredibly rude and racist towards a Black serviceman as well, making Amy side with her instead of doing the right thing. Jo wouldn't have been so rude, Meg would have scolded and Beth would have been shy but at least talked to the man. Amy feels a bit ashamed. She KNOWS that's not the way she was raised but she does it again! She keeps silent when she should speak.
I still don't buy the Amy/Laurie romance. It's still underdeveloped. A lot is told rather than shown and I don't like that. Why does Laurie love Amy? Why does she love him? She's had a crush on him since childhood but we don't know much more than that. He knows her secrets and keeps quiet and still falls in love.
I also don't understand why Amy thinks she has to give up art. Florence Pugh's Amy gave that great speech in Greta Gerwig's 2020 film. (Amy's genius vs. talent speech). It was hard for women in the 1860s but this Amy seems to enjoy art and is good at it. Does she even know she's not great? I don't understand that.
Are you still reading? One more minor critique. If I were going to update Little Women and set it in New England, because it is a quintessentially New England story, I would have made the Marches half Irish or ethnic, descendants of mill workers AND the Boston abolitionist. It would make more sense. I don't know anyone in New England who is pure Yankee. I had maybe one classmate who didn't know where her family was from and when but judging from her name, her ancestors were likely French-Canadian mill workers and I very much grew up in the same kind of community as the March sisters not too too far from Concord.
I'd like to know how much research the authors did on WWII Concord. I was curious whether there was a swimming pool and if Amy had ever been to the other side of town, near the factories, to try "exotic" ethnic food. I'd have liked to see her head a little bit west on a date and visit a little hole in the wall restaurant in Fitchburg known as L'Conco D'Oro. She could have befriended Rita, age 15, the youngest in the family of 5 children. She had two big sisters. I think they could have related to one another! Sadly I don't think Fred Vaughn would have gone to an Eye-talian place. Too exotic. She'll have to go with Laurie when he comes back.
Anyway; TL:DR This book had potential but it's not a good adaption of the beloved novel.
