The Little Women Letters is about the descendents of Jo from Little Women. I don't know if I have said it recently, but Little Women is my favorite book of all time. And Jo is my favorite character in Little Women. I found The Little Women Letters in the bargain rack of Barnes and Noble and figured a book about the descendents of Jo March would be worth my time.
The book is about 3 sisters, Emma, Lulu, and Sophie. They live in England with their American born mother (a direct descendant of Jo) and their English born father. The sisters are pretty typical sisters (at least in my opinion, having 2 sisters of my own). One day at Sunday brunch, Fee, the mother, asks Lulu to look in the attic for some family recipes. Lulu never finds the recipes, but instead stumbles across letters written between the March sisters. Donnelly uses these letters as a framework for the rest of the novel.
A bit about the characters. Emma is the oldest sister. She is in the middle of planning her wedding. She has a bit of a brush with celebrity and struggles to balance her life with a desire to have a few of the "finer" things in life. Her experiences are very similar to Meg's in The Little Women.
Lulu, the middle sister, is struggling to find her place in the world. She hasn't found the love of her life like Emma has and hasn't found something she is passionate about like her little sister Sophie. She relates to Jo in a lot of ways.
Sophie, the youngest, is an aspiring actress. She desires to be on the stages of London. She is the "pretty" one of the family, much like Amy.
One thing that I wasn't sure of before reading this book but really ended up loving was the letters themselves. I didn't know if Donnelly would be able to capture the essence of Louisa May Alcott's writing to get the right feel of the letters. Donnelly actually does a great job, making it seem like Alcott almost left behind a secret stash of letters to be used at a later date to expand on the story of the March sisters. One of my favorite aspects of this story was the fact that Jo wrote letters to Beth after Beth passed away. One of the reasons why I have always loved Jo is because she writes to express her feelings. It just made sense to me that Jo would continue to write letters to Beth after Beth has left this world.
This book was excellent. I'm glad I decided to take a chance and pick up this book. I tend to shy away from novels that are written as a continuation of novels written by other authors because it is hard for me to believe that the essence of the original book will carry on. I think the reason this novel worked so well is because it wasn't written specifically about the March sisters but about their descendants. Donnelly was able to capture what Alcott captured so many years ago: the relationship of sisters. That relationship is the same now as it was a hundred years ago.
