An Old-Fashioned Girl
by Louisa May Alcott
I think the reason I found this book so hard to put down was that it reminded me of my old friends Little Women and Little Men. I've read those books to pieces and wished they were ten times as long. Jo's Boys, the sequel to Little Men, didn't have the same indescribable something that kept me coming back. Louisa May Alcott was much older when she wrote Jo's Boys, 15 years older, to be precise. Her health was poor and her youthful optimism waning. I found it a very sad book.
But An Old-Fashioned Girl, written right in between the first two, is as bright and cheery as a bouquet of daisies. It's sweet, optimistic, and even a little daring in the way it portrays young women striking out on their own to make their way in the world, unsupported by fathers or brothers or uncles or rich, widowed aunts. The young women cooperate in a sisterhood that lies completely under the radar of the men who control the purse strings. I'd think this book might have been a little shocking for the times, with its description of artistic young women pursuing their independent careers, finding fulfillment in a paintbrush or a pen rather than a husband and family.
These shocking, unnatural women don't dominate the story, so maybe the morality police missed them. Polly and Fanny both fall in love with honorable men and marry, just as women ought to--
And so they were married, and all lived happily till they died.
No doubt they died of childbed fever after birthing ten sickly babies and burying five, but that's a different story.
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