No- I much prefer Mac-- I don't think charlie, really could have been reformed, even through love.

I can't remember if Phoebe (from Rose in Bloom, not Friends) ended up with a significant other. I really wanted her too.

That illness of Mac's in Eight Cousins was a complete set-up for their future relationship. Not only does she become more sensitive to him and his plight and taps into her more caring side, but he eventually takes pains to try and be thoughtful of her as well, even though he does try and hide it from his brothers to cover up any wussiness.

Actually, now that I'm talking about it, I want to reread Eight Cousins. I'll have to see if my bookstore has it for me to pick up when I work tomorrow. Maybe it's less "alternative education tract" than I remember Uncle Alec's techniques being.

I can't remember if Phoebe (from Rose in Bloom, not Friends) ended up with a significant other. I really wanted her too.

She does. The family eventually relents and decides she's good enough for Archie after she risks her own life nursing Uncle Alec through an illness he gets while helping some immigrants. (Gotta love all the class and ethnic issues packed into that subplot!)

It's online, Sophia. thefreelibrary.com

I forgot about Phoebe and Archie getting together! Phoebe was a great friend for Rose to have, and did a good job balancing the flightiness of some of her aunts.

The store does have Eight Cousins in stock, so I'll be reading it tomorrow night. Yay!

It's been so long since I read Old-Fashioned Girl or Eight Cousins. I should reread. I have Little Women practically memorized, though.

It's online, Sophia. thefreelibrary.com

Awesome! of course, I should be working.....

I remembered the subplot, but not the result. I think I sort of paired her with Rose's Uncle (Alec???) in my head, even though that would be such a May/December creepy thing. But I think I picture Phoebe as, say, 20 when Rose was 15. But Uncle thought so highly of Pheobe

And -t, I know you were probably kidding, but I'd be happy to tell you all what we're reading when in case you or anyone else would like to talk about the books here.

Only halfway kidding, really. I could use a reason to read something other than the used paperbacks I keep picking up. Not that they aren't perfectly fine, but extending the old education is always nice.

Which is to say, yes, please do!

I read the unabridged version of Little Women. The copy I read was a really old hardcover -- it belonged to my mother when she was a kid, and I think it actually may have originally belonged to my grandmother. (For some reason, the books my grandmother saved from her childhood were a few classics, like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden, plus a box full of Bobbsey Twins books. Including the first one, where in the first chapter, a girl faints while jump-roping, and everyone says that her parents shouldn't have been letting a girl exert herself so much, because of course she's going to fall ill from it.)

Because jump roping is so much more strenuous than, say, CHILDBIRTH.