Four sisters desperately seeking the blueprints to life—the modern-day retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women like only Anna Todd (After, Imagines) could do.The Spring Girls—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—are a force of nature on the New Orleans military base where they live. As different as they are, with their father on tour in Iraq and their mother hiding something, their fears are very much … their fears are very much the same. Struggling to build lives they can be proud of and that will lift them out of their humble station in life, one year will determine all that their futures can become.
The oldest, Meg, will be an officer’s wife and enter military society like so many of the women she admires. If her passion—and her reputation—don’t derail her.
Beth, the workhorse of the family, is afraid to leave the house, is afraid she’ll never figure out who she really is.
Jo just wants out. Wishing she could skip to graduation, she dreams of a life in New York City and a career in journalism where she can impact the world. Nothing can stop her—not even love.
And Amy, the youngest, is watching all her sisters, learning from how they handle themselves. For better or worse.
With plenty of sass, romance, and drama, The Spring Girls revisits Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women, and brings its themes of love, war, class, adolescence, and family into the language of the twenty-first century.
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First and foremost, please don’t let my rating fool you. Sometimes people see three stars and they immediately think that it is a negative review. That is definitely not the case. I enjoyed The Spring Girls and really thought it was written well. There was just something missing for me so in a sense, the rating is a bit false. I felt I needed to say that because I think a lot of people will like this book as long as you go into it with an open mind.
The Spring Girls is a modern day re-telling of The Little Women. I will admit that at first I struggled with the idea of using the original character names but in the end, I’m glad that Todd decided to do that. There are so many ways to re-tell a classic and a lot of times, the names are changed. So I think at first I was expecting that, but in the end, I think it worked better keeping the original names.
The girls are growing up in New Orleans. Their father is away on tour in Afghanistan and we get to see this modern day military family and how they cope and grow when one of their loved ones is away fighting for freedom. This story is told in multiple POVs, including all the sisters, the mother and a few others. It gives you a really good idea of how different each girl is and the struggles they go through. Since they are different ages, different things are important to them at this point in their life.
While I enjoyed each of their POVs, I just had a hard time connecting with most of them. As usual, Jo stands out and she was the easiest to connect with but the other’s kind of fell off the radar for me for some reason. I think that’s the downside to modernizing it. When you start throwing in cell phones and other materialistic things that are important to a 15 year old, it’s easier to disconnect. I know that sounds unfair to Todd because the original had the same but it was just a different era. I don’t know if I can really explain it well enough.
The only other thing that bothered me a bit was that I felt like some of the things I wanted to know towards the end were skimmed over or briefly touched and I felt like there needed to be a bit more. I know that I’m the minority here and again, I want to state that I really did enjoy this book and I think a lot of people will like it.
If you are looking for modern day re-telling of a classic that shows us about love, strength and loyalty, then you need to pick up The Spring Girls and read it. It won’t be just like Little Woman so through that notion out the window and go in with an open mind and just enjoy the story.
love the way Anna Todd writes and even though this was a modern take on the Little Women and i have to admit even though i have never seen Little Women i knew i still had to read it and if it did anything it makes me want to watch it now.
I loved this story it was such a beautiful take on a family growing up and coming of age, in a way i wish i had this book when i was around 16 as it would have been such an amazing story to read at that age. In saying that I’m 35 and still loved it.
In this tale of 4 sisters we get to learn so much about this family and what it’s like to live in the military world and live in certain places and try and build relationships with other people even if you don’t know where you will be in a week, month or year.
It also shows that a thing can happen in the blink of an eye to change a family and we really get to see how a family comes together as well as butting heads at the same time. We had four such different sisters who tried to help each other even though they were different and they had each others backs
It was such a different book to what i would normally read but again a big fan of Anna Todd and i didn’t want to put this down. It’s a must read and it really shows us aswell how social media in these days can really be hurtful and you have nowhere o hide.
Absolutely loved this story and it’s a must read loved it 5 Stars.
When I first heard that, The Spring Girls was based on my favorite Little Women. I was excited yet a bit scared. But I wanted to give it a chance.
This story starts off so slow, and I wasn’t able to get into it at first. But I powered through. There are quite a bit of things that are different. I’m not sure it really was a good thing, to put this type of story into a different time period. The sisters just didn’t feel the same and pretty much the whole aspect of the story. I know that this is considered a Modern day retelling.
I wanted this to take hold of me and grab me. But it didn’t. I’m a bit disappointed. I think The Spring Girls is a story that many will love. The writing was good, but I just felt like this could have been better.
I did not enjoy this book to start with it is a retelling of Little Women. I have to say at the end I did want to find out what happened to each character. I thought the ending was well written.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott has always been on of my favorite books and movies, so I was so excited to read this one by Anna Todd. She exceeded all my expectations.
Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are the Spring girls. They live with their mother in New Orleans while their father is on tour in Iraq. Anna Todd does a wonderful job of bringing their voices to life as the chapters are in told in several different characters’ POVs. That gave me such an insight into the characters and their story. I loved the way the book began with Meredith’s POV. She is their mother, and her chapter gave a background to the book and her relationships with her daughters and husband. I especially loved her memories of the birth of each child. I could certainly relate to that being a mother myself.
Some characters, at their core, remain similar to Alcott’s characters, and some she takes in another direction. While some readers might not like that, I loved it. In my opinion, that was necessary to make the characters realistic in this day and age. Anna Todd definitely made the story and the characters her own. Anna Todd is a new author to me, and I can’t believe I waited this long to read something by her. I’m excited to read more from her.
A retelling of Little women . A story of a woman and her 4 daughters and how they come about in age when their mom is struggling at home as dad is away serving the country.
The story is interesting in the sense the daily struggles of teenage girls, their budding awareness of their sexuality, their surroundings and entailing realizations
I found the characters not clearly etched, but thats just me.
Meg is the eldest , she’s supposedly the leader and her mom’s shoulder to prop on. But her physical attributes fascinated the writer more than her moral attitudes.
She’s a bit promiscuous and is very aware of her effects on boys
Amy , though plainer in comparison, is by no means less attractive . She generally follows Meg
Jo is really wild in her imagination and attitude. Materialistic to a fault, she comes across a tad too insensitive at times. And she’s a potty mouth !!! Very outspoken and opinionated, she can argue !!
Beth is the Baby and adorable
I’m going to be honest and say , calling their mom Meredith or marmee, irritated me a bit
All in all interesting story
Just my opinion -Classics shouldn’t be messed with. End of !
Please go ahead and enjoy the book
3.5 stars
The modern day retelling of Little Women…..
Whew, this book….this book gave me such a book hangover and it took me a while to really come up with a review worthy of it, but I will try.
When I was younger, I floved (you know what floved means right?!? F…ing love) Louisa May Alcott’s book Little Women. I had a ragged, ripped dog-eared paperback that I would have handy all the time. My only problem with it, and it was a minor problem, was the time it was written. The Civil War era, I mean I get it, that was the era that Ms. Alcott lived in and what she knew.
So color me surprised and excited when I was given the opportunity to read the modern retelling of this childhood gem!
Anna Todd retells this story amazingly! As an Army veteran, and married to a combat Army veteran with children. This story grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. The trials and tribulations of the Spring family hit home with me. I have experienced, first hand, the heartache when my husband was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real fear of every time the doorbell rang while he was gone. I have experienced, first hand, the drama of FRG’s, the power trips of some Army wives and I have experienced, first hand, the emotional turmoil my children went through when he was deployed and when he returned home. While reading this book, I was having flashbacks to my own past and how I handled the day to day as an Army wife and mother.
I want to personally thank you Anna Todd, for bringing the world of military family life to the forefront. I now know I will have a paperback copy, which with every re-read will come a little ragged, a little dog-eared and little ripped and it will be floved as much, if not more than the original!