Week Two: Jo and Laurie

Hello! Thank you for returning to my blog! <3

This week I finished reading Jo and Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa De La Cruz, a romantic retelling of the infamous characters Josephine March and Theodore Laurence from Little Women. If you have read Little Women, you've probably had your heart broken in some way by one of the characters' fates in the novel. For me, Jo and Laurie never coming together as a couple was the one that truly irked me and broke me down. If you are like me, looking to mend the sadness in your heart from their unfortunate destiny, this book is for you.

This post will be a little shorter than the last one because the characters are the same! I will not need to go into as many details this time. If you would like deeper details on the characters from Little Women, refer to my post from week one!

Favorite quote:

"It's alright Jo, I've known it was coming. I've known it longer than either of you, I suppose. It's just - well, some part of me must mourn it. Just for a moment. I've lost Beth, I nearly lost Amy. Now today I'll lose you, too."

Marmee March

Initial Response:

If you had asked me how I felt about this book when I fist started to read it, I would have told you I despised it. Going from reading the original Little Women novel to a rewritten tale of the characters I loved was difficult for me. It felt as I was trying to find as many similarities as I could to the original novel, and I was not finding the details I wanted. But if you know me as a reader, I refuse to not finish a book no matter what my initial feeling is on it.

I gave the story a try, continuing to read through, and remembering that this book was written in this century, and the writing style and language would be overall different from Louisa May Alcott's original telling.

A difficult barrier to get through while reading this story was the timeline. Obviously, this story is a retelling of two of the main characters lives, which means the original story was going to be changed. I had a hard time understanding where the story "was cut" and the place in the original novel where Jo and the other March sisters lives began again. The beginning of the book takes place after Jo has written her first novel. Now, this doesn't happen until part two of Little Women, where the March sisters are older and beginning their separate lives away from their childhood home. This was also confusing to me because Beth March has already passed away at the beginning, leaving only three of the March sisters during the duration of the book. Again, this detail does not occur until part two of the original Little Women Novel.

I was able to understand where the storyline was taking place as I was continuing to read, being that the year was 1869 when the actual retelling begins, and Jo March's book "Little Women" was published in 1868. A good way to place the setting of the story is that it is between the publication of Little Women and Good Wives.

Overall, despite my initial confusion, the story continued to intrigue me with very cool details that the authors included to reference the original novel. I believe that Stohl and De La Cruz kept the main characters authentic, and I never felt that the characters were too modern or written with different personalities than the original novel. I was greatly satisfied with the outcome of Jo and Laurie, which is definitely what the I presume the authors intended to accomplish! I would even go to say that there were parts of this retelling that broke my heart all over again and made me tear up!

Writing Style:

I'd like to get into the way this book was written before discussing the plot to avoid any sort of confusion. Louisa May Alcott wrote the original classic novel Little Women, and based the events in her story off her real family members. Alcott is portrayed as Jo March in her novel, and has Jo write her own novel in the book about her family and experiences. She writes this book after her sister passes away, and discovers her writing style and how writing fiction based on the truth was what she was best at.

Now in Jo and Laurie, Jo March's book is titled "Little Women", which she writes as a fiction novel about her family and life. This novel that she writes is the classic novel written originally be Louisa May Alcott...does that make sense? I hope so! Think of it as a book, within a book... within a book. A paradox in some ways.

There seemed to be a little bit of a blend between Louisa May Alcott's actual life, and Jo's fictional life which was hard to follow. If you read the authors' note at the end of the book there is more of a description of why Stohl and De La Cruz chose some of the storylines. I believe that though this was a fanfiction, the authors attempted to bring in some concepts that did not enhance the purpose of the retelling; a romantic alternate ending for Jo and Laurie.

Now to touch on the actual writing style of the book! The authors seemed to copy the original language and writing style as Little Women, which makes for a smooth transition into the new story. There were some instances where phrases were repetitive and in my opinion, overused enough for the reader to notice that the authors were attempting to stay in that "past century" language. The phrase "Christopher Columbus!" was used very frequently, which annoyed me a little bit as well as the word "rot" and "rotten". That may just be personal annoyances though!

All and all the language felt very similar to Alcott's in Little Women.

Plot/Structure:

As I've described briefly above, the timeline of this story takes place in 1869, Concord Massachusetts, a year after Jo March's first novel, "Little Women" was published. Jo's publisher Mr. Niles, is pushing her to write a sequel titled "Good Wives", so she can give her characters a happy ending. Jo has written some truths, partial truths and some not so true stories about her family, and made them into lovable characters that everyone seemed to appreciate. To the public eye, though her story was fiction, it was hard to look at the March family through any other lens after reading Jo's story. This upset and embarrassed the other March sisters, Amy and Meg. A particular embarrassing story is how Jo made up a romance between Laurie's tutor Mr. John Brooke and Meg, which was in fact, untrue. Jo, still heartbroken by the passing of her beloved sister Beth, chooses to keep Beth alive in her story, knowing that it would be too difficult to write about otherwise.

Jo fights with the decision to write her sequel the way she sees it, and how the publishers want it to be. Mr. Niles would like all the ladies to be married off to someone, but Jo has other ideas that leave her characters taking a more independent route, which as women during that time, was uncalled for. Jo struggles to find a happy medium, and lacks the true inspiration to write a good sequel. Theodore Laurence, or affectionately referred to as Laurie, wants to help his best friend (and love of his life) find the inspiration she needs to write her sequel. He takes her on a trip to New York, along with her eldest sister Meg, where he invites her to lovely opera performances, has a very elegant Worth dress created for her, and gives her tickets to see the infamous Charles Dickens. Laurie was attempting to show her how much he cared for her, and eventually asks for her hand, which Jo repeatedly rebuffs. Their friendship seems to come to a halt, and Jo continues attempting to write her sequel for her publishers.

Now, with Laurie gone away to Cambridge and becoming engaged to someone new, Amy becoming very ill, and Meg and Mr. Brookes' "fictional" romance coming to life, Jo is battling loneliness, and witnessing love blossom all around her without feeling any of it herself. Does she really love Laurie back? Is she just jealous that everyone around her is having a better outcome than her? Should she follow her own heart or just what she thinks is best for everyone?

Characters:

I think that the best part of this entire novel was the integrity of the characters being kept. While reading, you do not feel as if the characters have changed in the slightest, even being written by two completely different authors. The dialogue between Jo and Laurie will truly have you melting, because if you are a long term "shipper" of them like I am, you've been waiting for the feelings to come tumbling out from both of them.

Something that I found extremely unnecessary was that Stohl and De La Cruz did not keep the affectionate term the March sisters used for their mother. Instead of "Marmee", they referred to Mrs. March as "Mama Abba" which really messed with me. I was unsure why they chose to do this. It seems they had an unknown issue with the name Marmee. They only included the affectionate term when referring to Jo's novel, saying that the girls called her Marmee in the story, but it did not translate to what they actually call her in real life. The authors also made Aunt March completely fictional. She did not exist in the March sister's real lives, which I found to be very strange.

Though I won't dive super deep into the characters in this post, I would like to touch on some of my favorite quotes from each character.

"Oh, Meg! What is wrong with everyone in this family? I was so looking forward to a wedding!"

Amy March

"It's from a portrait of my mother when she was young, in Paris. She was laughing and so happy and so alive... well, it's one picture of her that always reminds me of you, Jo. The dress isn't the same, of course, but an approximation of it."

Laurie

"Jo, truly it's why I came. But - a ducal ball? After you've written so many imaginary ones, in all our little plays? How can we miss the very thing itself?"

Meg March

"That I - I want to marry you. After all. After everything." The words came tumbling out. "That is, if you'll still have me. Rotten as I've been. Rotten as I will most assuredly be again. But please, please don't let that stop you. Please, Teddy, do say you will."

Jo March

Likelihood to recommend to others:

Meh, I would recommend this book to anyone who was disappointed with the outcome of Jo and Laurie in Little Women. This is a cute retelling of what readers wanted from the original novel. If you are passionate about the classic storyline, or if you have turned to this book for some more details on other aspects of the novel that were not greatly explained, this is not the book for you. The book twists the classic novel to fit a timeline that would better incorporate Laurie and Jo ending up together, which drastically changes some major plot points from the original. If you are open for interpretation like I was, I truly think you will enjoy the book and have a good laugh and most definitely a good cry.

I think my overall rating for Jo and Laurie would be 3/5 stars! Hitting most of my criteria for a great story with some personal irks about how the authors proceeded with the narrative. I had always built up a story in my head about how I wanted Jo and Laurie to end up, and really this book did not satisfy all of what I pictured. Which I am sure some others will feel the same after they read it as well.

From Greta Gerwigs 2019 film adaption of Little Women.

Please tune in next week for my 3rd book of the year: They Both Die in the End by Adam Silvera.