Very good book. Engaging!

Wonderful language mixed with believable history. Clever concept with the tie in to "Little Women" and the cultural issues of the time. Wonderful use of other literary and historical characters from the period.

I love historical fiction, and this was a great book. I thought that Brooks did a great job of flushing out Mr. March, a character barely seen in Little Women. I also felt like I got some insight to Marmee and how Mr. March's absence and choices effected her and the girls.

Brooks has taken a minor character, the absent Mr. March from Little Women, and made him complete. He is complex and his marriage is complex. We see 20+ years of his life and find out what made him the person he was. Parts of the novel are set against the backdrop of the Civil War and the descriptions are disturbing and very detailed. there are also references to the dangers of the Underground Railroad. Great Author! Great Novel!

Thought-provoking novel. Especially recommended to history buffs. Many story lines can be discussed. Relevency applies to today.

The characters were developed well and the story was, tho fiction, an insight into the Civil War from a very human perspective.

This was one of our book selections last year and as I started the book I thought this will be a good read, and given the number of pages I thought it wouldn't take me very long to read. However, only a chapter into the novel I was already struggling to continue. I felt too much time was taken to convey thoughts, background, etc. Sometimes it just seemed I kept reading and would lose sight of the story being conveyed to the reader. Only myself and one other person finished this book in our club and we both struggled to do so.

Each book,"March" and "Little Women", add a great, emotional richness to each other. Geraldine Brooks' researchs into the Alcott family and the 19th century are apparent and appreciated.

Again...I have now learned that I don't need to waste any more time with this author. Her writing is uninspired. There were no new insights into anything about the time period. Everything was predictable and rather stereotyped to fit the 21st century's mores. Character development was almost nil. The way we found out about a character was that the aouthor told us they were such and such, not by anything in the story telling. Predictable noble slave, evil slavedriver, confused hero. Blah! Blah! Blah!

This book tells a personal story about an individual and those he meets during the time of the Civil War. An innovative look at the past and how lives might be shaped.

I like Gerladine Brooks' novels, this is my third. Fleshing out the character of the father in Little Women was inspired.The writing is a bit flowery, reflecting a 19th century father writing to his family of "Little Women." I found the conflicting emotions he expresses, from his core beliefs against war and slavery, to be credible and very interesting.