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emmahealy23 's review for:
March
by Geraldine Brooks
I hate to do it, but this book is only 3.5 stars for me. I love Little Women so so much, and because of that (plus the fact that it won the Pulitzer) I had higher hopes. It’s a well-written Civil War novel that doesn’t do a bad job of filling in the life of the Mr. March that is absent from Little Women.
My biggest qualm, though, is how Marmee is written! In Little Women, she is a strong and independent individual who existence goes beyond her relationship with her husband, which was a revolutionary idea at the time of writing. And in the beginning of this book, the author makes it very clear that her Marmee is the same. But by the end, Marmee is merely a jealous wife whose biggest concern is not the health of her husband but her jealousy of another successful woman. That just doesn’t sound like the Marmee I know and love.
I also can’t say I’m a huge fan of war books in general, so the first 60% of this was pretty slow and hard to read. Again, though it was beautifully written, it seemed sort of plot-less, and Mr. March spent the whole time serving himself and his own ego rather than helping the people he set out to save.
The whole thing made me realize that I should never meet my heroes, because meeting this version of Mr. and Mrs. March made me very upset.
My biggest qualm, though, is how Marmee is written! In Little Women, she is a strong and independent individual who existence goes beyond her relationship with her husband, which was a revolutionary idea at the time of writing. And in the beginning of this book, the author makes it very clear that her Marmee is the same. But by the end, Marmee is merely a jealous wife whose biggest concern is not the health of her husband but her jealousy of another successful woman. That just doesn’t sound like the Marmee I know and love.
I also can’t say I’m a huge fan of war books in general, so the first 60% of this was pretty slow and hard to read. Again, though it was beautifully written, it seemed sort of plot-less, and Mr. March spent the whole time serving himself and his own ego rather than helping the people he set out to save.
The whole thing made me realize that I should never meet my heroes, because meeting this version of Mr. and Mrs. March made me very upset.