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| Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl & Melissa De La Cruz with my Little Women Storybook Quilt showing Jo March and Laurie |
I don't read many YA books--this is rated for 7-9 grades--but I had a chance to read the beginning of the novel on BookishFirst and liked it enough to trade in my 'points' and claim a copy.
A good knowledge of Little Women and Louisa May Alcott was a must for this reader, and the authors passed the test. Nothing felt improbable, the characters were not twisted into someone unrecognizable.
The authors take up Alcott's characters, loosely based on her real family, and melds Alcott's family story onto the March family. It can get slightly confusing if you try to keep fact and fiction separate. You just have to trust the story, which is not fictionalized biography or wholly the fictional March characters of Alcott's books.
The novel begins after Jo's Little Women has been published to great success and her publisher has contracted her for a second book. She is to conclude the March sisters' stories with marriages. Unable to reconcile herself to such an end, Jo can't give her fictionalized self and sisters romance and a ring.
Jo & Laurie have been best friends but Laurie's feelings are deepening, driving Jo away. Meg finds John Brooke is interested in her, but she feels the need to marry money or to at least allow John to marry well. Beth has died, but not in Jo's story, and Amy is the pig-tailed child dreamer.
The foursome friends of Jo, Laurie, Meg, and John have a week in New York City, with Jo smashing all Laurie's dreams. He moves on to college while Jo struggles to write her sequel. And struggles. And struggles.
But Jo can't finish her ficitonalized story until she comes to grips with her real story. Can she be a writer and a wife? Can she trust to love someone who might leave her, as her beloved sister Beth did?
I found the book charming, easy to read, and a great escape.
I received a free book through BookishFirst in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
from the publisher:
1869, Concord, Massachusetts: After the publication of her first novel, Jo March is shocked to discover her book of scribbles has become a bestseller, and her publisher and fans demand a sequel. While pressured into coming up with a story, she goes to New York with her dear friend Laurie for a week of inspiration--museums, operas, and even a once-in-a-lifetime reading by Charles Dickens himself!
But Laurie has romance on his mind, and despite her growing feelings, Jo's desire to remain independent leads her to turn down his heartfelt marriage proposal and sends the poor boy off to college heartbroken. When Laurie returns to Concord with a sophisticated new girlfriend, will Jo finally communicate her true heart's desire or lose the love of her life forever?Jo & Laurie: A Romantic Retelling
by Margaret Stohl & Melissa De La Cruz
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication June 2, 2020
ISBN-10: 1984812017
ISBN-13: 978-1984812018
