I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t get into it. I’m a huge fan of the original Little Women, so this should have been a perfect fit for me, but I found the characters in this iteration to be very flat.

I am not sure what I really wanted out of reading this work, maybe a feeling similar to the one I get when I reread Little Women, but it just didn't give me that feeling.

Written by three different authors, this work tells the story of Beth, Meg, and Amy and really reads like a fan fiction. I liked the ideas within each story, but I struggled to finish this one.
I can see where others will love the stories contained here, and don't let me review keep you from checking this one out, just keep your expectations a little low and you will probably not be disappointed.


Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the dARC of this work in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington for the advanced copy of this book.

I went into The Other March Sisters excited to see how other folks interprète the beloved March Sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, but felt quite let down quite early on.

The story gives us a glimpse into the untold stories of the three other March sisters during Little Women, when Jo isn’t present. It gives each of them a chance to tell their own story.

What was proposed as a new look into the story - a follow up for Little Women lovers - reads like fan fiction. The characters feel forced and lacking of their characteristics of the original novel, reduced down to a stereotype to reflect a modern idea. Perhaps some of the points the writers were making could have done better in an original story, but as The March Sisters, it feels as though the authors didn’t read the original book. One example of this is in Meg’s relationship with her husband John. In this story, it is hinted at that she doesn’t feel comfortable around him, and that she might have been forced into her marriage. Which is factually incorrect given the source material. There is always room for interpretation and creative liberties, but to so drastically change a character and a relationship to push a different story makes the Little Women-ness of it all feel like a cover thrown on a different story in order to draw more readers.

The writing itself is fine. The writers have a cohesive voice together, and I applaud them for writing this all together. However this isn’t Little Women. A let down indeed.

My review will be shared on my Instagram closer to the release date.

I'm very precious about Little Women. It's been my favorite book for almost my entire life. I'm a harsh judge on retellings/reimaginations/continuations of most of my favorites (Little Women, Jane Eyre, Rebecca) because the books are classic for a reason. I understand the desire to expand worlds and give other characters a voice, but I don't think it's necessary.

The Other March Sisters is the story of the March sisters while Jo is in New York. The source material is skimmed (at best), and the authors have used that time period to expand the world of Meg, Beth, and Amy. Each author took liberties and drew inspiration from the real-life Louisa May Alcott and her sisters.

Well, buckle up.

Meg - I hated that this author decided to push the storyline that Marmee manipulated Meg into marriage and that Meg did it for spite. Meg's whole thing was that she loved John. She could have married for money, many times over, but instead, she married for love. The storyline of Meg becoming an herbalist was great and really showed the potential that Meg had. All of it felt out of character overall for everyone else. Marmee in this storyline was TERRIBLE. And I only just NOW learned that the writer of this section just read Little Women...so there wasn't that deep-engrained love built-in.

Beth—we all know poor old Beth's fate. This Beth was angry and full of angst. Not that I doubt Beth wasn't full of these things, but Beth is the sweet, morale sister. She's full of goodness and love. This Beth... just... no to all of this.

Amy—I in no way believe that Marmee only pushed Amy to marry into wealth. Marmee wanted her women to be happy, to marry for love, and to live their own lives. Amy's adventures with her cousin and Fred Vaughn were fun to read about, but the Laurie stuff could and should have happened in a better way. I did feel that the author took more from the most recent Little Women film than the actual source material. Also, this writer really likes 'cornflower blue'.

Here's my BIGGEST issue - Laurie. Oh, Teddy.
The way that he talked about the proposal to Jo being a giant misunderstanding and the implications of Jo's sexuality made me insanely angry. The ENTIRE storyline about his sexuality and relationship with Frank Vaughn felt like an agenda was being pushed down my throat.

OBVIOUSLY, queer people have always been around. Of course, Jo was probably queer. I..I just expect more. I need someone who truly loves and respects characters/people. This felt like a giant grad school experiment.

I read this with an open mind, willing to see where this went. I should have known better.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

For fans of: Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Geraldine Brooks,
Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌘
Genre: Historical Fiction
TW: Terminal illness, abortion

Synopsis: If history is told by the victors, fiction is molded by the narrator. So what might we learn of Jo March’s sisters—Meg, Beth, & Amy—if their tale wasn’t filtered by writerly Jo’s perceptions? This question is the inspiration behind the Other March Sisters.

Thoughts: This book is, in one word, delightful. It strikes an impressive balance between feeling authentic to the mid-19th century & examining the lives of the 3 little women through a 21st century lens. It shows women asking questions their real-life contemporaries undoubtedly struggled with about their aspirations & “proper place,” even if they couldn’t vocalize or act on them. Thus we find Amy torn between her artistic ambitions & the pressure to make a good marriage; we see Meg’s discontent as a poor man’s wife; & we experience Beth’s rage at being defined by her illness. These universal conflicts transcend time. My favorite element: the queer themes these talented authors found woven into Alcott’s original & expanded on in their retelling. And lest sticklers scoff about forcing a round peg into a square hole, revisit the original like I did to rediscover the language Alcott coded into her novel. The result: a heart-warming novel showing that love can take many forms.

You don’t need to have read Little Women to enjoy The Other March Sisters, though it did inspire me to revisit & rediscover the original in audio.

I would like to thank Net Galley and Kensington Publishing for the opportunity to read this as an ARC. I was very interested to see that this was a re imagining of the classic Little Women. It would focus on Meg, Amy and Beth, not Jo. This was intriguing. Unfortunately, I did not like this book at all. Rather than a retelling, or reimagining, it was a desecration. It was also dull. Maybe all of the focus we on Jo, because she was the most interesting, and even new writers could not make the rest exciting. In this version, Meg is unhappy and turns to "herbalist cures" to sell to other women, Amy is more concerned with art and feels pressured into a rich marriage by her parents, Jo is discussed in vague terms,but really never even sends a letter) although her sexuality is discussed by Amy and Laurie, and several characters are queer. However, I could live with all of this, except that Marmee, sweet, loving Marmee, is turned into a villain. Instead of a re imagining, we get a character assassination. I read in the notes that one of the writers ( the writer of the Meg section), had not read Little Women before starting this book. It shows.

Originally, I wasn't sure I would like this book. I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed reading the reimagined stories of Amy, Meg and Beth.

This is a really hard review for me to write because Little Women is my all-time favorite book. It’s the book that turned me into a reader. My sister gave me my very first copy as a gift for some sort of celebration when I was maybe around six? I have been loving these characters for over 35 years. I can visualize them, I can picture the setting, the house, the clothing, how they sound, how they relate to each other. This is just more than a book to me. It’s my comfort. It’s my childhood. I’m very protective of this book and its characters.

This is the book that turned me into a reader. I know this story in and out, I can recite dialogue, quotes. And I literally wore the copy out that my sister gave me to the point where it is held together by tape today. I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to copies of Little Women and anything Little Women-related.

So I jumped at the chance to be an ARC reader when I saw that this was coming out.

First of all, I understand that this was meant to focus on the sisters who didn’t get to tell as much of their story in the original. But I think leaving Jo out completely made it feel very weird. And in regard to Jo and Laurie’s relationship, I didn’t see the point in making Laurie’s proposal to Jo a mistake—that just didn’t make any sense.

There is a strong feminist and queer-inclusive slant to the overall book, which I obviously appreciated. The authors highlight the struggles of women navigating societal expectations while also embracing queer representation, showing that these themes are not only timeless but deeply interconnected.

Amy’s story got the majority of the book. The book opens with her and ends with her. Given that she got so much of it, I really wish there had been more about the love story between her and Laurie. We all know she turns down Fred, so a lot of that could’ve just been cut out and focused more on her and Laurie’s romance. But as an artistic person, I appreciated all of the art that was included in her story, though it did feel a bit much and a little repetitive. I did love seeing the women artists that she connected with, and thought it was lovely that Laurie agreed to pose for her so that she could finally do a nude study.

Meg’s story was my favorite. The authors tied in that the inspiration for Meg, which was Anna Alcott Pratt, Louisa May Alcott’s real-life sister, was an avid reader, so it makes sense that Meg would learn about gardening and herbalism from a book.

I thought that was a really nice touch. I also appreciated seeing Meg struggle with being a mother. Even though I’m not a mom myself, I know that motherhood and the struggles that come with it are not often talked about. I never really had strong feelings about whether John and Meg actually loved each other in the original, but in this version, it was interesting that their story starts off with John being absent, almost in a contentious way, where he’s blaming Meg for the state of their home, and Marmee also blaming her because she’s struggling with being a mom and doesn’t make herself pretty for her husband. It’s the typical story of a husband neglecting his wife because she’s worn out and depressed from taking care of the kids, while he takes no responsibility at all. I was a little panicked at certain parts of the story, thinking that John was going to turn out to be a real jerk, but I’m glad he redeemed himself, and I’m happy that their love story kind of tied itself up by the end of Meg’s story. But honestly, the biggest draw to me was the herbalism, the gardening, and Meg’s involvement in helping women with pregnancy prevention and herbal abortions—an interesting addition given the time period, especially since contraception wasn’t available.

Beth’s story was also very interesting, and I liked that they pulled in some of the anger from Louisa May Alcott’s own life, especially towards the end when she was suffering from her health condition. Beth’s struggle with her illness and her wish to be more than just existing in the house, calling herself a “skeleton” or “ghost,” was a compelling take on her character. The friendship aspect of her relationship with Florida really resonated with me—Beth seemed to be seeking connection and validation of her existence, and I appreciated how their bond was built on emotional support and mutual understanding. However, I didn’t quite connect with the romantic angle between them. I’ve always thought of Beth as someone who was asexual, so their romantic relationship didn’t really resonate with me in that way. Still, their deep friendship was a powerful part of her story.

I thought the writing was very lyrical and matched up to the original style of Little Women pretty well, though occasional modern words or themes did disrupt that a bit.

I appreciated the authors pulling in things from the real lives of Anna, Lizzie, and May Alcott. The research they did was admirable. I also really appreciated the queer representation and the author’s note on it because, as they said, queer people have always been here and will always be here. I loved the author’s notes at the end and the discussion about how Louisa May Alcott was probably queer—based on what I’ve read, I agree that she may have been queer or trans.

I wouldn’t say that this honored the original book in the way that I would’ve liked it to because I think there were too many deviations, especially in terms of Marmee and changing Jo and Laurie’s story. I think that overall, they could’ve stuck closer to what truly happened in the book and still given it a feminist twist.

In the end, I’m torn. I was thrilled to read something new about Little Women, but I’m left unsure of how I truly feel about it. I can’t give it the five stars I was hoping to give. There were too many deviations from things that didn’t need to be changed.

But I loved Meg’s story. I loved that she admitted she didn’t love John and that she wanted more than just being a wife and mother. She reached out and grabbed it by becoming an herbalist and helping women in a kick-ass, witchy, feminist way. So, solely because of that story, I’m going to land on four stars. Honestly, I really can’t make up my mind on where it should sit on my rating scale, but it’s somewhere between a four and a 4.5!

The Other March Sisters is a retelling of Little Women, sharing the experiences of Amy, Meg, and Beth during Jo’s time in New York. Each sister gets their own part in the novel, written by one of three authors. I am a big fan of the original story, but I do not mind modernized classics, and I was eager for the supposed feminist angle of this book, having wanted more for the sisters in the original story.
I was particularly looking forward to the development of Amy and Laurie’s relationship and was hoping to get more from their story in this retelling. This was not the case. I believe in, and advocate for, representation in books, but the queer representation in this story lacks depth. From my perspective, it read like “sprinkling in” representation just for the sake of said representation. It did not feel like the story wanted to fully commit to this new angle.
I read in several other reviews of this book that Meg’s chapter was written by an author that only read Little Women to write her section of the story. I can’t confirm this information, but it would help explain the decision to villainize Marmee. Retelling or not, making Marmee a manipulative antagonist to Meg is such a departure from the original storyline, and there is little material to support this version of Marmee in the other sister’s chapters. It just didn’t make any sense without supporting justification, and Meg’s section read like it lacked an understanding of the original story.
I enjoyed Beth’s chapter the most, having felt that she was the least developed sister in the original story. Her determination and this less passive version of Beth was refreshing, and I enjoyed the scenes of her as a piano teacher.
I was happy to return to world of Little Women in this story, but I wanted more from this reimagining. This book would serve as an excellent book club read, as it would prompt some great discussions regarding the departures from the original story.

Because of my love for little woman I think I had a majorly huge expectation for/from this book. It was disappointing and kind of fell flat for me unfortunately. I was hoping for more from the characters and the story and it just wasn’t there.

Review: The Other March Sisters

This book was written by fans of Ms Alcott’s Little Women series. They apparently felt that Jo’s sisters did not get their fair share of the story. They also wanted the subplot of queerness in the original story to be more overt and to extend into the lives of Meg, Beth and Amy.

I enjoyed the depiction of the constant subversive work by women to manage their own lives and be the authors of their own life stories at a time and in a class that worked strongly against acknowledging the personhood of women, and refused them any sexuality at all. All three sisters sought autonomy, Meg within her marriage, Beth within the parameters of her illness and Amy in her art and romantic life. All three had to contend with the views of the very strong minded Marmee.

I thought all three women became much more human and interesting in this book. There is a set of questions for book clubs/reflections at the back that I found excellent.

Thank you to the publisher and author for an advance copy of this book and the opportunity to review this story.

Definitely worth reading. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

The Other March Sisters is a retelling of Little Women from the prospective of Amy, Meg, and Beth, during the time Jo leaves for New York. With Jo being left out of the story, the voices of her sisters tell their own stories of what happened before Jo comes back home. Each sister's part is told by one of the three authors, and they also drew inspiration from the real life of Louisa May Alcott and her sisters.

While some parts of this book were strong, like the relationship growth with Amy and Laurie, there were others that just fell flat and didn't work. Having Marmee pretty much become the antagonist to Meg and to discover that she manipulated both Meg and John into getting married because for some reason Marmee would never want Meg to improve her social standing was just weird. It made no logical sense that Marmee would depend solely on Amy to make a good match, when I always seemed to remember her wanting her daughters to be happy with their choices. I seriously thought she was going to have Meg arrested for helping her friend have a miscarriage and keep Meg's children because Marmee knew best how to care for them when they were sick. After finishing the book, I found out that the author who wrote Meg's section only read Little Women in order to write this book, which now makes total sense. The section read like someone who didn't understand the characters, and it completely showed. That also explained why Marmee seemed different in the other sections.

I have to say I was excited to read about the developing relationship with Amy and Laurie, but of course that had to have a little twist in it as well that added nothing to the story. Even the way they had to retcon Laurie's proposal to Jo to make it a misunderstanding was odd just so they could make it so Amy was always his first choice. As a fan of the original story, I was really hoping to love this book and it had so much promise for me, but didn't quite deliver.

As someone who has loved Little Women since the first time I read it as a child many years ago, I was beyond excited to get to read an advance copy of The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko and Liz Parker. In this book the authors shift the focus away from Jo and give each of her sisters a chance to shine while drawing inspiration from the lives of L.M. Alcott's sisters. We see newly wed Meg struggling with married life and motherhood before finding purpose in using her knowledge of plants and herbs to help other women, Beth experiencing anger and frustration at the limitations placed on her not just by her illness but by the fears of her mother, but also experiencing the joys of first love, and Amy realising that remaining true to herself and her art is more important than making a financially advantageous match.
There is a strong feminist slant to the stories of the three sisters, and I really liked the new take on their lives but I did struggle quite a bit with the reframing of their mother as the "villain " of the story. Villain may be a little harsh but she feels very different from the beloved Marmee of the original book, more demanding and overbearing and much more unlikeable. I also wish that the book was a little longer, so that the individual stories could have been expanded a little more and allowed to develop at a more gentle pace. While I liked all three stories, it was Beth's that resonated with me most, she was in my opinion the least developed of the sisters in the original book so seeing her as less passive and more frustrated and determined made her much more interesting. The tone and themes of the book are definitely more modern but that did not bother me, I liked the fresh perspective.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Thank you to the NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book I’m exchange for honest feedback. Truth be told I never read Little Women, but having watched (and loved) the 1994 movie multiple times I liked the concept of this book. It was also interesting to read the inspiration for each sisters’ story comes in part from real life details of Louisa May Alcott’s sisters. I appreciated that each sister’s story showed the character’s strength and that they were all tied to women being their own person outside of just being a wife or mother. This book was a fun spin on what I know of the original story though admittedly there were parts of Amy’s Redux story that bored me. I would give this a 3.75, rounded up to 4 stars.

I love anything "Little Women", and this book delves into the lives of Amy, Beth and Meg which is a great different perspective than others I have read. The writing was good, and kept my interest. That being said, the tone of the book was a little harsher than I would prefer.

I really enjoyed this story of the little women! I liked how it focused on the other sisters and how they found their own happiness, since the original story focused so much on Jo.

As a lover of Little Women, I jumped at the chance for this ARC. I was even able to get a physical ARC, not just an e-ARC. However I think I have decided retellings of Little Women are just not for me. The characters are just too ingrained in my head to try to see them any other way. This one intrigued me though as it was going to tell the stories of Meg, Beth, and Amy while Jo was in New York. I was especially excited for Amy's part as I was hoping for the romance of her and Laurie. That is not what I got. (sad face) I think I should add that this is a feminist retelling. I thought the book was fine. It is these three authors' version of events. Each sister gets one part of the book, except Amy gets a little extra part at the end. I will say that I did appreciate the authors adding in things from the real lives of Anna, Lizzie, and May Alcott and the book will still look good on my Little Women bookshelf.

-"Being silent is not a sign of weakness or ignorance. In fact, being more keen to listen than to talk is a gift."

I didn't read Little Women until I was in my 20's, and when I finally did I didn't have the same rose colored glasses towards the March parents that I might have if I had read it as a child. Some people might find the treatment Marmee and Jo got here as harsh, but I appreciated the authors' perspectives on the dynamics of the March family. Told from the points of view of the non-Jo sisters this book gave more insight into the motivations of Amy, Beth, and Meg. I especially enjoyed the chapters about Meg and her garden.

Thanks to Kensington Publishing for sending me this ARC free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I really enjoyed reading this book, the prose was lovely and enticing, each author poured their heart and soul into their recreations of each character. I really liked how much they took from the real Alcott sisters to inspire a deeper look at the March sisters.

However, I think it lacked ambition somewhat. It only takes place while the March sisters are adults and separated not giving much time for character development; Amy became the most developed character as she had two parts of the book all to herself but I would have loved more from Meg and Beth!

I felt the length of the novel did not do justice to the characters, they needed more space. Not to mention framing Jo and Marmee as the antagonists of the piece felt like a slap in the face to those who truly loved the original but i feel I could have accepted it with more depth and more words on the page to explore it!

A lot of the history was researched very well but something about the tone felt anachronistic for the time particularly in regard to sexuality and reproductive rights there was a definite modern tone.

Overall, I think it’s a great character study of beloved literary sisters and it only fell down due to its limitations if they had only been more ambitious with the length it would have been a fast favourite. I think I will definitely seek out more work by these authors though as I loved their prose.

This book dances between heartbreak and hope, weaving together distinct voices to reimagine a classic tale. Each perspective offers a fresh look at sisterhood, resilience, and self-discovery.