Skip to main content

Review: "March" by Geraldine Brooks

From Goodreads:  From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man (Sue Monk Kidd). With "pitch-perfect writing" (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks's place as a renowned author of historical fiction. My Thoughts:  I really wanted to like this book, I swear.  I thought it would be neat to see a different take on Little Women which is why I picked this up.  Ugh, it wasn't neat at all.  I know that March is a Pulitzer Prize winner but it just didn't do it for me.  The story is beautifully written but I really didn't like the character of Mr. March.  He was kind of a sad, annoying, pathetic man and I got really tired of being inside of his head.  The story is mostly told from Mr. March's point of view and that made the story even harder to deal with; I couldn't get away from him!  I know he meant well but he seemed to screw up everything he touched and had absolutely no business being involved in the war.  He seemed to be glory-seeking and extremely self-righteous in the beginning but wound up completely broken both mentally and physically in the end.  The characters in the story were great and I would have liked to get to know them more and have less of Mr. March.  This is a really short book but it took me way too long to get through and I really didn't want to keep going.  I feel kind of bad because I loved The People of the Book (also by Brooks) but this one was just not for me.  2 stars.
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnneFebruary 9, 2012 at 7:13 AM

    I totally agree with your review. I didn't like this book either, I thought Mr. March was a horrible character and I got sick of reading about him.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review and Giveaway: "Distant Signs" by Anne Richter

Synopsis: Distant Signs is an intimate portrait of two families spanning three generations amidst turbulent political change, behind and beyond the Berlin Wall. In 1960s East Germany, Margret, a professor’s daughter from the city, meets and marries Hans, from a small village in Thuringia. The couple struggle to contend with their different backgrounds, and the emotional scars they bear from childhood in the aftermath of war. As East German history gradually unravels, with collision of the personal and political, their two families’ hidden truths are quietly revealed. An exquisitely written novel with strongly etched characters that stay with you long after the book is finished and an authentic portrayal of family life behind the iron curtain based on personal experience of the author who is East German and was 16 years old at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why do families repeat destructive patterns of behaviour across generations? Should the personal take precedence over
Post a Comment
Read more

Mailbox Monday (49)

It's time for another Mailbox Monday post!  Once again I could not resist the cheap ebooks that Amazon and Barnes and Noble were promoting this week.  I really need to stop!  I already have more than I can read.  I also was able to spend a little time browsing at the library and I came home with a nice stack of books.  These days, I hardly ever get to spend time at the library by myself for more than a minute or two so it was wonderful to have time to just wander and see what I could find. Purchased (for kindle): The Color of Secrets by Lindsay Ashford The One I Was by Eliza Graham House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty   Purchased (for nook): One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore  Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams From the Library: The Messenger by Daniel Silva   The Ripper's Wife by Brandy Purdy Hotel Moscow by Talia Carner Brazen by Katherine Longshore What books did you get this week?
15 comments
Read more

Mailbox Monday (78)

 Happy Sunday everybody!  September is over and I can hardly believe it.  It seems as though the month has flown by.  Now I'm excited for fall and all of the upcoming holidays.  October is the start of my favorite time of year and I'm hoping there will be plenty of room for reading in between all of the upcoming events. I requested some new holiday books from the library and had no idea all of my holds would come in at once so I need to get moving on these.  I'm really excited to dig into some sweet, fluffy reads and these will do just the trick. From the Library: A Snow Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller This is the fourth book in a series that I really enjoyed so I'm eager to get started on it. Holly and Ivy by Fern Michaels The Christmas Room by Catherine Anderson I was so intrigued by the cover on this one that I had to pick it up. For Review (from NetGalley): I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon     I really need to st
13 comments
Read more