I was very excited to read this novel because of my great love and appreciation for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I think that it is really difficult to write a work that rides on the tailcoats of a beloved literary classic. This book fell flat. This book that is a "sequel" in which Jo and Laurie get together is not satisfying for a few reasons. Laurie is the boy next door that the March sisters admire and Jo falls for when they are younger. When Jo moves to New York to begin her journey as a writer she briefly returns to home in which Laurie proposes to her and she declines. This is one of the most powerful points in the novel because Jo recognizes that she can not be who she wants to be if she marries Laurie. Laurie's reaction is rather immature, he marries, Jo's sister, Amy. While Laurie has a good heart, he is an immature man who embodies Jo's first love and someone who is compliant to other people's wishes. Jo is not. Not marrying Laurie was against what the readers of the time wanted and the societal norms. Alcott was breaking boundaries by not having Jo and Laurie get married. Jo eventually gets married at the end of Little Women, but that is not the main point of the book. The main point of the book is that a young woman went to New York to become a writer despite that not being the accepted norm for women at the time. This book is a "sequel" that falls flat on its face because it does not recognize the powerful message that Jo sends to women and society when she rejects Laurie. Little Women is ahead of its time and making You essentially take this work of art Little Women and muddle it to be just like every other unoriginal romantic novel. One star.