Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe, and Jessica Spotswood
A reimagining of Little Women set in the spring of 1942, when the United States is suddenly embroiled in the second World War, this story, told from each March sister’s point of view, is one of grief, love, and self-discovery.
In the spring of 1942, the United States is reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor. While the US starts sending troops to the front, the March family of Concord, Massachusetts grieves their own enormous loss: the death of their daughter, Beth.
Under the strain of their grief, Beth’s remaining sisters fracture, each going their own way with Jo nursing her wounds and building planes in Boston, Meg holding down the home front with Marmee, and Amy living a secret life as a Red Cross volunteer in London–the same city where one Mr. Theodore Laurence is stationed as an army pilot.
Each March sister’s point of view is written by a separate author, three in prose and Beth’s in verse, still holding the family together from beyond the grave. Woven together, these threads tell a story of finding one’s way in a world undergoing catastrophic change.
The idea of this book is great and I think some elements were done really well. However, I think overall the book fell flat for me and a lot of the POVs were not engaging enough.
Amy:
I loved Amy’s point of view and thought this was probably the strongest point of view in the book. I liked the explanation for why Laurie proposed to Jo, and the expansion on his and Amy’s relationship was great. Her storyline was interesting and I could have read a whole book just about her situation. She showed growth and had some true conflict in her storyline. I won’t go into too much detail but I think her storyline is the one that transitioned best into the new setting & time. This storyline fit very well with her personality from the original The Little Women.
Meg:
Meg’s storyline was fine I guess. It’s not super memorable (I had to refresh my memory before writing this). She’s a school teacher and Junior Red Cross advisor. Her personality also fits her occupation here, but aside from some inner turmoil, there’s not a lot to her story, which makes it feel incredibly drawn out and boring. She does have a pretty good resolution of issues with Marmie and I liked this, but again, not a very strong point of view.
Beth:
Beth is dead. She’s dead at the start of the book and it’s in the description so this isn’t a spoiler. However, I’m someone who will read the description of the book and then never come back to it, so for the longest time I couldn’t figure out who this fourth narrator was. Some of this is because I listened to an audiobook, but it felt so far disconnected from the rest of the voices that it was weird. At first I thought it had something to do with Pilgrim’s Progress or some other book that the girls were all reading.
Jo:
Jo’s storyline was the most disappointing of all. I was promised a sapphic romance retelling of Little Women and I guess technically we got that, but they danced around the issue for so long and the majority of the sapphic rep was subtext, which is fine, my issue just came from the way it was marketed. It still is sapphic, but Jo’s storyline is NOT a romance. I felt like whichever author wrote Jo (because I believe the different authors all focused on a singular March girl) just did not have a strong voice & didn’t write her all that well. Jo is my favorite normally but I found myself gravitating towards Amy. I also hated that they changed so much of Jo’s storyline and would have much preferred if her love interest, instead of being an entirely new character, was a gender-bent version of the professor. I love the professor from Little Women and it just seems silly to me that they didn’t keep anything from his character in this book.
Have you read this book? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments!
BeffyNicole Reads 