Book Review: Little Women
Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott
Read from June 24 to September 11, 2015
So much feelings going on right after finishing this book. I read the Puffin n Bloom by Rifle edition, so it is smaller on the size and thick. I read it for almost 5 months. Daebak. But then again, I try to write this book review, although I am not really happy with the ending.
So, Little Women in a nutshell...
It tells us about strong sisterhood and how it results in feminism perspectives depicted along the way. The little women are Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. They used to be rich, but in the story they express how miserable it is to be poor. I feel quite discontented by the fact these characters are soooo desperate in handling their economy problems. Like, okay I get it, this story comes when the background condition was not that good (WW II), but still, they are so desperate to be rich. The way the author speaks it sounds too childish.
Meg is a woman with its stereotype clinging into her soul as soon as she knows she is pretty enough to find rich man along with his big house, but ends up with poor John Brooke. They look happy, to build their own castle from zero, but what I can get from this character is that she is too money-oriented and all about fancy clothes from Paris, although in the end she regrets her bad behavior (for being a woman with a lot of demands).
Jo is the angel, although she is not really that saint in personality. She is tomboy, plays a lot of her youth with her homie, Laurie, until I thought they were meant to be together in the end! They are so perfect together. Jo is home-oriented. She aspires to be a writer. She is into reading, very much. But she's also too harsh sometimes in showing off her feminine side. She always has her sisters back, no matter what.
Beth is the third and the weakest of all. In the story she's got acute fever and almost died. She has it because the older sisters (Meg and Jo) do not do their job in taking care the poor neighbor which happened to have a baby with that dangerous fever. It took him away too. So when Beth takes care of this poor little baby, she gets infected and also needs to face the fact that she saw when the baby lost its last breath. It gives her so much impact that she feels weaker and barely told or even have her own stories in the book. Why did you do that, Dear Louisa? :( As she grows up, Beth has been falling in love with Laurie. She knows about how Laurie loves Jo very much, but Jo cannot see it. The loving sister sees Beth growing weak whenever she couldn't see Laurie and then finds the fact that beth is longing for Laurie. This condition brings Jo to escape for a little while to New York. She lets Laurie and Beth make their way together, although Laurie in sweet manner tells her that her effort for it is such baloney that Laurie would wait for her no matter what. He is right. But Jo refuses his love. And Beth died in her 18 age. (T-T)
Amy is the baby. I can remember how she is only a toddler when Jo and Laurie play together. She is into art. She can copy a lot of pictures in the most realistic way. She travels a lot (Paris, Rome, Europe countries pretty much visited). But I don't like this character. She is just like Meg. She dreams of marrying rich man from noble society. In the end, which I really resent is she ends up with Laurie. In his despair of longing Jo's love, Amy seduces him blindly, ignoring the fact that she has seen how close Jo and Laurie was. Too insensitive, which I hate.
Last is Laurie. I thought he would end up with Jo, and I still hate to know the fact that he didn't. He is a sweet boy and spends all of his time absorbing love from March family. Just find it disappointing to know that he weds Amy while Jo gets wed by an old Professor (yuck).
The story is started when they were kids (amy and Beth) and teenagers. The book does not tell me the age difference between Amy and Laurie, all I can remember is Amy was a baby when Laurie and Jo played together. I should go back to a few first pages to mark down their ages and make the conclusion myself. Laurie needs to be with his Jo. Tragic story, yet I feel some resemblances. I have 3 beautiful sisters. The first one is Meg, I am the second, my late sister is the third (late Beth, see the resemblance?), and the last one is Amy. The resemblance is too similar to defy. Feel glad about it, yet loathe it too. I don't know why.
The most upsetting moment is when Laurie go back and forth having this crush with these Little Women. How he loved Meg once, and then Jo (for quite a long time), and probably Beth if she still has time to live, and last, Amy. His choice is too pathetic. He picks Amy because he cannot be with Jo. And Jo is too Angel for a human, for a friend and sister. That is pathetic, in my opinion. She is either human or angel. She can't be both. It is too fake.
Disappointing ending, yet I learn a lot from this book. This is a book with a lot of moral stories be told in idyllic style of writing, because it is classic (yeay!).
