Fresh readings of a much-loved classic.
Louisa May Alcott’s fictional sisters still captivate contemporary readers.
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Little Women, four writers offer thoughtful reflections about the famous March sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Journalist Bolick (Becoming a Hairstylist, 2019, etc.) recalls that when she was young, Meg seemed unappealing to her, “the quintessential good girl of morality tales,” defined by her prettiness. Alcott’s message, Bolick decided, “was that pretty is a prison. If, like Meg, you are pretty, you can’t also be a writer, or an artist.” As an adult, though, Bolick came to realize that rather than represent sharply contrasting identities, the sisters need to be taken as a whole “to embody different aspects of the female experience,” inviting the reader “to imagine herself into a variety of personalities.” Poet and fiction writer Zhang (Sour Heart, 2017, etc.) recounts her changing responses to Jo, whom at first she hated for “her boyishness, her impetuousness, her obliviousness” to “feminine preening,” and her lack of interest in romance. Yet as she dedicated herself to writing, perhaps at the cost of marriage and children, Zhang came to understand—and to share—Jo’s ambivalence about her choices. Essayist and fiction writer Machado (Her Body and Other Parties, 2017) considers Lizzie Alcott, Louisa’s sister and the model for modest, undemanding Beth. Lizzie, though, was hardly sweet and docile but instead “snarky and strange and funny and kind and suffered tremendously and died angry at the world.” Transformed into a literary character, she has been effaced. “How do you keep other people from making you a Beth?” Machado wonders. “How do you stay out of other people’s stories?” Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Smiley (Golden Age, 2015, etc.) considers Amy, who, as the youngest, learns to be observant, flexible, and practical. More than her sisters, Amy “goes about shaping her life in a conscious manner”; she becomes, for Smiley, a “modern woman.” Besides focusing on Amy, Smiley offers a sensitive assessment of Marmee’s mothering, which often reveals a surprising lack of empathy.
Fresh readings of a much-loved classic.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59853-628-7
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
