LMA Challenge: Rose In Bloom

This is another review for the Louisa May Alcott Challenge! Rose in Bloom was a popular choice by the readers of this challenge so be sure to hop In The Bookcase to see the reviews from the rest of the girls on this classic story. :)

Rose in Bloom

by Louisa May Alcott

      Rose in Bloom is the sequel story to Eight Cousins, told 2 years later. Rose, Phebe, and Uncle Alec come home from their European travels with the girls all grown up into womanhood, to find the boy cousins to also have grown into full manhood and each in their own occupations and ambitions of the world. Rose comes home to the temptation and struggles of love and romance, fashion, and all the pleasures of youth. After the many years of serious study, she decides to try a little experiment of “leading the life other girls lead, just for a little while”, only to run into a series of troubles and very long nights. “I gave up gaiety because I valued health more.”

      With the new year upon her, Rose sets aside her fancy gowns and chooses to put both her time and her fortune to good use, helping those less fortunate; the widows, the poor, and the orphaned. 

      Meanwhile Phebe leaves to pursue her music and to make a way for herself, Charlie has become quite the rogue, Mac studies a great deal, and Steve has fallen for the becoming Phebe.

     It's a story of love and romance, family, and the forming of character.

Take It Away!

      One of the wonderful things about Miss Alcott's books is you can always find a moral to the story and something to learn from them.

“It is the small temptations which undermine integrity, unless we watch and pray, and never think them too trivial to be resisted.”

“Read the best books first or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”

“Remember, my girl, that one may read at forty was is unsafe at twenty, and that we never can be too careful what food we give that precious yet perilous thing called the imagination.”

Just a Thought...

      I found later on as I was reading that I had in fact read this book in my past, as well. So some scenes became more familiar to me as I read along. That was fun, because it's intriguing reading a book at different ages and finding if your opinions or style have changed at all. :D I think I'm a little more critical of my books now as a woman of 29 than I was of a girl at 16 though. ;) My opinions vary quite a bit from those of my sisters in Christ, so another look, I found Tarissa's lovely post to be a bit more well-rounded than my own.

      Once again I found Miss Alcott's heroine to be a bit too pious, and again too powerful over the men in her life. It's a wonder to me that these books were published after Little Women, with it's strong female characters and vibrancy, yet the women in her later books are pious and are portrayed as “godesses” by the heroes of the stories. However, at least in this tale, Rose admits her fears on this respect:

“It is not good for you to depend on any one so much for your happiness, I think; and I know it is bad for me to feel that I have so much power over a fellow-creature.”

     I can't help but picture Miss Alcott scribbling away at a desk, adding in her own opinions and moral beliefs....and perhaps it's a shame that we shrink so willingly now in fiction writings from sharing any opinions at all. That is one reason to highly value old classics such as these.

      My one other sorrow was just a matter of taste, I suppose, for it was quite sad, moody, and highly romanticised in many spots – just as a piece of poetry, or a dramatic tragedy on the stage. And I did not care for a semi-love-triangle scenario between Rose and two of her cousins. I cannot share more on this without giving the story away, but suffice it to say, in my opinion, the way Miss Alcott chose to tie up the loose ends in the romance between Rose and Charlie was too “convient”, sad, and depressing.

      Having read Eight Cousins last year, it was nice to see how everyone was paired up in the end and see the family all grown up. No one likes loose ends to their books! :)

My Rating

     *** 3 out of 5 stars

      I was happy it all ended well, but there was too much drama throughout the book for my own tastes. :)

~ ~ ~

      My last book of this challenge is Good Wives, the sequel story to Little Women. As I was beginning this book I realized that of the books I'd chosen to read, 3 of them were re-reads from my highschool days that I'd quite forgotten I had read before. I was quite mistaken when I'd said they were books of Miss Alcott's that I'd never read before. Those were pre-Goodreads days, so now it will be “official” that I've read them, and hopefully I'll remember better next time. ;) {I am certain I've never read Under the Lilacs, so perhaps later on I'll share a review of that after I've read it, once this challenge is complete.}

Have a blessed day!