Oh dear, this sounded so promising but the execution was clunky and the characters unlikable. There was very little chemistry between characters and I just did not enjoy this at all, I'm sorry to say! I had to skim the last portion. This book may find an audience, but it was not for me.

I struggled a lot with this one. I didn't like any of the characters, especially Amy. There was way too much judgment from all the characters and I wasn't convinced of the romance at all. I don't like to dnf so I ended up skimming the last bit of the book just to know what happened.

First things first: I love Little Women so I knew I needed this book in my life.

I enjoyed the characters of Amy and Theo. I thought they were cute and the chemistry was there. However, the pacing left me reeling at times. The development was not there a lot with the characters and even the plot. This sounded like a win to me, but it was a little disappointing. But if it sounds like it would be something you're interested in, please give it a try!

It felt like this story was very far fetched. It was very odd to me that Amy’s boyfriend and the girl he has been cheating on her with helped her move out of her apartment and in her new house. Is she dead inside? Then Theo, the boy she pined for when she was younger, just happens to live in the lower level part of the house she moved into? Nope.

I enjoyed this book! There were what I felt were flow issues throughout the ending, but it didn't ruin the story. I liked the group of friends and had a feeling there may have been an earlier book about one couple--I was right and will read that at some point to see if little things in this story make more sense with the background knowledge. Also, heads up that this is not a Little Women retelling like I thought it was for some reason--it's about people whose lives have been greatly impacted by the story due to their mother's love of it and random coincidences.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever Publishing for the ARC! The book is out May 30/23. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Oh I had such high hopes for this one! I enjoyed Blame it on the Brontes. and was excited this one was set in the same town. Those characters returned and made several appearances, but it wasn’t enough to save this story.
The premise was fantastic. The characters were great. The conflict was believable. Amy and Theo’s past history as friends to almost-something-more drive the present day storyline just about perfectly.
However, I couldn’t enjoy any of those things because the scenes were so abruptly cut off. Every time something was about to happen - cut. Sometimes it picked up so much later, I thought I had skipped a page or two. Some of the emotional scenes flipped from angry and resentful to everything’s ok I love you so much on a dime. It made my head spin. I need more thought, more consideration, more dialogue, and a few more in between scenes for me to believe in this couple. Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Leave it to the March Sisters is a light romance about Amy, an English professor who dreams of creating art. When Amy's live-in boyfriend casually dumps her for the pizza delivery girl, she needs to quickly find somewhere new to live. When she finally views a decent space she signs on without asking questions about who else lives in the house, and ends up living with Theo, her sister's former best friend and her long time crush.

I thought the synopsis sounded great, and this had so much potential to be a fun story. However, it fell flat for me in several ways.

I had a lot of difficulty connecting with the characters in this book and found a lot of the dialogue to be just...off somehow. It wasn't written the way people actually speak, which always throws me off in a book.

Amy is a professor, and I found the chapters relating to her job to be dry and a bit cliche.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a cute story about an English professor named Amy who desperately wants to be an artist. At the start of the book, our main character Amy is thrown into a housing crisis after ending a relationship with the latest in a string of awful relationships. She is pleased to find a place to rent amidst the disaster that is her life, only to find out her new roommate is her unrequited crush, her sisters former best friend who her and her sister are no longer speaking to. This storyline had so much potential, but it ended up missing the mark in my opinion. The pace of the book was so slow, with a lot of unnecessary parts they could have been edited out for most of the book, and way too much happening right at the end. And the main characters weren’t very developed or likable. I received an ARC and this is my honest opinion.

This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting from a modern retelling of Little Women, but I was pleasantly surprised. The author’s love of literature was quite evident and as someone who doesn’t read classical literature, many of the references went over my head. However, I loved all the Little Women quotes and comparisons throughout the book. I wouldn’t even classify this as a modern retelling of the book, but more of an inspiration of the novel. Little Women isn’t the same without all four sisters and the struggles of growing up. However, with Amy and Jo’s mother naming them from the book and constantly making comparisons to the book, the spirit of Little Women holds true. I loved the cast of supporting characters and the humor throughout. The last quarter of the novel lacks the same level of care, consideration, and slow build that the rest of the book has, but overall, it is a very satisfying read. 4⭐️, 2🌶

This book fell short for me in several ways. The representation of academia for typical, the references to Little Women were basic, and the romance was predictable, but not engaging. I love Little Women, which is why I was excited for this book, but it did not live up to expectations.

Being a huge fan of Little Women and the relationship between Amy and Laurie in particular, I was very excited going into this book. Unfortunately, it didn't hit the mark. I found the pacing of the book to be rough with some parts of the story dragging on forever, followed by explosive conflicts that are gone in the blink of an eye. Important plot points were wrapped up far too quickly and irrelevant plot points given too much time.

Really loved this story and all of the characters. Amy, Jo , Theo and Marmee. The references that were included from Little Women were nice to be reading. I was wondering all the way through what was going to happen with Theo and Amy. Plus Marmee was going back to school and Jo and her boyfriend moving close to Amy and she and Jo would be working together. A VERY GOOD READ.

Leave It to the March sisters is Annie Sereno's second upcoming novel. It's a loose modern retelling of Little Women, perfect for those of us who grew up loving the book and movies. Which I will add the 1994 version is the best, no further comments needed, haha. Let me break this one down for you! Amy is a college English professor and department chair whose true passion is painting. Her older sister Jo is an accomplished writer living in Seattle. Their mother Meg, a huge Little Women fan, named her girls after Jo and Amy March. This story however centers around Amy. She's had quite the streak of dating very unusual men. In the beginning of our story she is dumped by the latest which leads her to renting a room in a house without ever meeting the housemate/landlord, Theo. Turns out Theo is her longtime childhood crush and former best friend of her sister. Similar to Little Women, Theo (or Laurie if that helps) spent much time with his neighbors The Marsden growing up. His parent's marriage was always on the rocks and The Marsden girls were his safe haven. But years ago a rift caused the trio to part. With this new living situation under way, Amy uses it as a chance to help reunite the gang. However, being in such close quarters with Theo again, Amy's crush comes back with a vengeance and leads her to wonder if Theo possibly has feelings for her or if her hunch that he always pined for Jo is true.

So you can see the similarities right? But added to the fun is a slew of eccentric side characters and a house full of rescue pets. After just reading an almost 500 page sci-fi this was the perfect light women's fiction/rom com that I needed. Pub Day is just around the corner on May 30th. Thank you Forever and NetGalley for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

A promising plot was executed a bit clunkily. There were a lot of things that were just too absurd, from neither of them checking the lease to the way her stepdads kept dying. I kept waiting for this book to hook me, but just never did.

Leave It to the March sisters by Annie Sereno is a cute little romance novel that loosely draws inspiration from the March sisters from Little Women. The book follows Amy Marsden, an English professor, as she navigates through a string of disastrous relationships.

Theo Sinclair, her sister Jo's best friend, has always been a commitment-phobe, and despite a steamy make-out session, Amy has managed to keep her feelings for him under control. That is until they end up living together, and Amy starts to see a side of Theo she never knew existed.

While the book is an enjoyable read, I couldn't help but feel that Theo wasn't the best fit for Amy. In my opinion, she could have done much better than him. However, I appreciated the author's efforts to create a sweet and entertaining romance novel with a touch of humor.

Overall, I would give Leave It to the March sisters by Annie Sereno 3.5 stars. It's a light and fun read, perfect for anyone looking for a quick escape into a world of romance and drama.

This pains to me to give this a low rating but I have to be honest in my review. It was almost one star but typically for me one stars are illegible so 2 will have to do. Somewhat spoilery content ahead.

This was extremely hard to read and not very compelling. It wasn’t due to the prose, it was difficult to follow the meandering plot. I put it down for weeks trying to get the motivation to continue. I would have DNFed at 35% but as it’s an ARC pushed through and it was not worth it.

The Plot

First up Amy and Jo: Her and her sister are toxic which is fine to explore per the original inspirstion of little women but Amy is such a pushover about it and it’s barely resolved by the end, they still keep secrets and communicate poorly. Some of Jo’s baggage seemed way more compelling, many times her story overshadowed Amy’s and I didn’t understand why she wasn’t the main character. I love the original story of Little Women and this had little to no redemption for Amy, PER USUAL.

Amy and Theo: The whole conflict of their history is info dumped at 10% in instead of slowly revealing it to the reader. This does NOT feel like romance. Theo is still having intimate moments on page with other women (not spice to be clear but Jo running her hand down his nose??) and at 60% was going on dates with other women. NOTHING changes in their relationship until 83%, so many repeated scenes of the SAME.

Theo: I had two major issues with theo’s characterization. He makes a comment about how people need to travel in order to grow and looks down on Amy for not having left the country as if that isn’t extremely privileged and Amy doesn’t even challenge it. Even more unforgivable, theo’s license is threatened because one of his clients might get divorced. This is extremely unrealistic and unethical and makes zero sense. This author loves writing about the realities of working in academia (applicable to Jo and Amy) but lacks in representation for ethical psychotherapy.

The formatting and storytelling:

This would have benefited from first person POV. I really had to think who was who when Jo and Amy were talking earlier on and which one was supposed to be the main character.

Sometimes it seems grounded in reality, sometimes it’s a bit too whimsical, never doing either completely or with a clear voice. Her mother has this random trail of dead husbands but neither of them have trauma from that? It would be able to exist on the whimsical side but then there would be hyper realistic scenes with tons of side character friends and academic talk with references. Everything with the friends was long and a bit boring. This never knew what it wanted to be.

The formatting needs a further indentation. Sometimes the dialogue bounces back and forth without being attributed to a person and the back and forth does not line up (same person speaks twice but on a new line making it seem like a new person) causing confusion. So we’re in Amy’s head and get all the info dumping and her whole life story but when we have theo’s POV he’s an unreliable narrator (still in 3rd). But then some of his secret is randomly revealed at a very low impact moment so what was the point of hiding it from the reader.

This was just all over the place and hard to finish. Extremely let down by what seemed like a simple and exciting presence of a second chance, roommates to lovers with an inspiration/callback to Little Women but this is NOT THAT. I appreciate the opportunity to read this ARC via NetGalley from Forever Pub.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott has forever been one of my favorite novels. I knew I had to read it when I saw that Annie Sereno had written a modern take on this classic tale. Leave It to the March Sisters was such a lovely book. The witty dialog and slow-burn romance between Amy and Theo were perfect for my taste. I enjoyed the close proximity friends-to-lovers trope combination. Add in the menagerie of rescue cats and dogs, and you won my heart! I adored this story of friendship, forgiveness, and falling in love. The small-town college backdrop was perfection. The twisted pasts of the main characters added depth to their stories. The character growth and personal realization were well-done and felt genuine. The anticipation and hopefulness in this kept me reading late into the night. I couldn't wait to see how the story ended. I will be grabbing Athena and Thornes's story, Blame It On the Brontes, for sure!

Thank you, Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read an ARC of this wonderful book.

I love a story retelling and this one is no different. While this story is a tad quirkier I still enjoyed the characters. This is a slow burn romance and a treat that several chapters are from Thor’s point of view. Highly recommend for all fans of Little Women.

Let me start off by saying: I adore Little Women. It is my favorite book of all time and my character love is perfectly split between Jo and Amy.
This story, as a story, is not awful. I actually enjoyed the will-they-won't-they first half of the book, and some of the reveals of the fall out between Amy and Theo and some secrets they were keeping. I enjoyed the Dual POV and the inclusion of their friends lives and their careers. It made for a cute read.
I did not enjoy once the leads got together. This is wehre the book felt sloppy at best. The first half was far superior.
One last comment: the CONSTANT call back to Little Women? I could have done without. By constantly referring to it, it very much gave up the storyline far too quickly, and felt as if a nice story was being crammed into a speciic box. I don't think it did anything to aid in the story telling at all. I could have easily done without.

I had high hopes for Leave it to the March Sisters however; I couldn't get into the story and found the plot to be dry.