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29th book of 2023.

2.5. A hard one to rate (being the same book as Little Women) because here in England they are published as two separate volumes, though that does make it is easier to critique them as individual beings. The March girls have grown up and the playfulness of the first book/first half has mostly waned. It took me a while to get involved in this one and I kept putting it down after only several pages. It's just less fun. There are some standout scenes, a poignant bit in both "Heartache" and "The Valley of the Shadow", some beautiful and surprising descriptions of nature in "Lazy Laurence", and so on, but generally the book plodded along. If you read the other reviews of this text, most people seem to hate it and claim the March sisters all turn out horribly, as do their marriages. Some of the sentiments are outdated, but I guess I just expected that from the book. I liked Laurie till the end, though Alcott doesn't give us the most satisfactory ending, considering. The only reason I read this is because without it, I'd essentially only read half of Little Women, and if I went to watch the film adaption (which I plan to do for once, hearing such good things), the second half of the movie would be a complete surprise to me. Though, of course, one of the main shockers of the book was ruined a long time ago, by Joey on Friends.