While Little Women is an adolescent coming-of-age story, Meg and Jo begins in young adulthood. The southern setting gives Kantra a fresh source of old-fashioned charm in which to situate the modern March sister’s challenges to conventional society. Kantra resets the nineteenth-century New England classic in Bunyan, North Carolina, the first of many literary references for Alcott fans, honoring the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, which is an important literary framework in Little Women. Meg and Jo is told in alternating character perspectives by the oldest two March sisters. Like the original novel on which it is based, Kantra’s story will also be told over the course of two books, with a second novel, Beth and Amy forthcoming. Virginia Kantra’s Meg and Jo: A Contemporary Retelling of Little Women (New York: Berkley, 2019) is a modern retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (original published in two parts in 18). I am pleased to present this guest post by Kristi Lynn Martin, PhD: her review of this novel based on Little Women.
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