It reminds me a little of the self-consciousness that John Irving can't keep out of his writing, no matter how much he tries.

Yep. As I say, I'm a story writer and a story reader. Tell me a story, and don't do anything to get in its way as it unrolls.

sometimes, I like the bells and whistles...they can be distracting, however.

I have no idea what version of Little Women I read. And I'd have to read it again to find out.

Don't want to.

Beth dies.

Interesting that Alcott should be brought up now. I'm just in the midst of reading her Rose in Bloom , the sequel to Eight Cousins , which I just finished. I definitely feel I have a different perspective on them as an adult than when I was younger. Especially I'm finding with Rose in Bloom that the undercurrents of early feminism are standing out more. I have tended to just skim through the preachy parts. Also there are some inconsistencies between the original and the sequel, but I thought that may be due to the versions I am reading (which BTW I downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg ). They are still enjoyable, I find, but not as much as when I was a kid, and probably for different reasons.

I never read Alcott until I was an adult (nor LM Montgomery, nor any number of the authors you're supposed to discover as a child or adolescent--I skipped straight to the adult section of the library as soon as my reading comprehension was up to it, and missed a great many classics thereby). Anyway, she's one of the authors I read with two brains--as a standard reader enjoying the story and characters, and as a history buff intrigued by the primary source material. The second brain even enjoys the sermons and the early feminism and all, because it's a Window on Our Past.

Anyway, Eight Cousins/Rose in Bloom is my favorite Alcott, followed by An Old-Fashioned Girl, with Little Women still a beloved book, but a distant third. I've never quite forgiven Alcott for sticking Jo with Prof. Bhaer, but I'd marry Mac Campbell in a second, and I'm not as bothered by Charlie's fate as many readers for some reason.

So should I go see this tonight?

I read a ton of Alcott growing up. I missed Roald Dahl, but read Louisa May. This is what happens when you're left on your own in the library. Not that I regret it by any means. I think I liked Little Men and Jo's Boys best. There were some unexpectedly dark turns. I also really liked Jack and Jill which had (at least to my mind at the time) all kinds of weird undercurrents and morbid streaks.

This is what happens when you're left on your own in the library.

What happened to me was that I read Dahl's adult stuff at the same time as the kid's stuff. In fact, I think I finished the adult oeuvre first, and may have omitted a kids book or two. I was technically too young for the former and too old for the latter at the time -- but I adore the man. Good proper dark.

Was American kiddie lit so bent on the absent or evil parent?

Was American kiddie lit so bent on the absent or evil parent?

There's a strong sub-theme of runaway kids making it on their own without adults (which sort of parallels the American pioneer experience). But everything from My Side Of the Mountain to The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler to The Island of Blue Dolphins (okay, she didn't run away - still, on her own) and many many others follows that theme.

eta: Though as JZ notes over my shoulder, moving the parents offstage is fairly standard if you want the child to have any agency in the narrative.

I read a lot of Alcott as a kid, but can't remember it in detail now, which is more a comment on the passing of time than on Alcott.

I've been holding off on the Weber because I really liked her first book but really hated her second, whose moral seemed to be

"Oh, well, the protagonist may have aided a terrorist and gotten her neighbor and many bombing victims killed, but at least at the end she knew herself better."

--which I did not find particularly satisfactory.