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** spoiler alert ** Young adults: Five Stars
Adults: Four Stars

There was no GoodReads in 1987, so I can't tell you exactly how I felt after reading Little Women as a thirteen-year-old girl. Maybe I cried when Beth died. It's possible that when Jo refused Laurie time and time again, I finally threw the book against the wall in disgust.

Twenty-two years later (yikes!) Little Women is a very different experience. Marmee's preaching and Beth's saintly ways are over-the-top to me now. Alcott's somewhat extreme attempt to shape and mold young minds as they journey through life, overcoming their personal weaknesses (a la Pilgrim's Progress) even strikes me as somewhat unintentionally humorous at times.

Three things struck me as important about Little Women upon this reading. They are important to me because of where I've been and whom I am now, and they might not have any meaning to anyone else (isn't that a beautiful thing about books?)

1. I am crazy about Jo's fierce independence. I can 100% identify with her natural inclination and earnest desire to work, be productive, and support herself. I could totally hang with the Transcendentalists!

2. Little Women is a beautiful love story. Yes, angelic Beth dies. But I didn't cry real tears until upon hearing of her demise, Laurie rushes from Germany to Switzerland to be by Amy's side. "I think everthing was said and settled then, for as they stood together quite silent for a moment, with the dark head bent down protectingly over the light one, Amy felt that no one could comfort and sustain her so well as Laurie, and Laurie decided that Amy was the only woman in the world who could fill Jo's place and make him happy." Yes!

3. Little Women is for Little Women. Only a teenage girl can inhabit this sugary sweet world of domestic tranquility, where the women are so virtuous that even the men walk the straight and narrow, in fear of disapointing them or their mothers. Little Women is certainly a CLASSIC and will always remain dear to my heart, but now my excitement lies in the anticipation of my 8 year old girls' introduction to the March sisters, rather than in any personal re-reading.