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Mar 21, 2010

Christine rated it:

Anyone who loved Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” will find “The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott” a delightful extension of the family atmosphere that made Alcott’s book such a treasure. In much the same way that the Jo March character in “Little Women” is based on Alcott’s own life and family story, so too, is this novel based in part on the real life of Louisa May Alcott.

Though the central story of Louisa’s romance with Joseph Singer during the summer of 1855 in Walpole, New Ham More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2010

Erin rated it:

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kelly O'Connor McNees needs to brace herself for the storm of praise she will soon be smothered with. I received an advance copy of Lost Summer on Friday and read it by Saturday, I could not put it down.

Kelly builds a believable scenario about a person that I have held in incredibly high regard since I was a young girl, writer of Little Women Louisa May Alcott. Lost Sum More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 24, 2011

Beth rated it:

The first thing that attracted me to this book was the pretty cover. No, I don't generally judge books by their covers but to this avid reader, a picture of a book on the cover of a book is irresistible.

This is a historical novel about Louisa May Alcott, part fiction and part based on research by the debut author Kelly O'Connor McNees. It is a gentle and old fashioned tale filled with colorful characters that came as a welcome break from the Holocaust/WWII books I just finished readi More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2010

Pamela rated it:

I was quite impressed with this book. The author proposes a love affair for the never-married LMA and answers the ever-intriguing question of Laurie's identity. The author's intense research yields a plot that is quite believable, even for LMA, and the writing style of the author reminds the reader of Alcott and the Victorian period. The novel also offers a lot of insight into the Alcott household and the philosophical but non-working father who condemned his family to poverty and the charity o More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2010

Kristin rated it:

I remember as a child reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and hoping I would follow a similar path as “Jo”, the independent, free-spirited heroine who balks at the conventional restraints of her time. In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees, readers get another chance to meet the iconic family this novel was based upon and take a closer look at Alcott during the summer of 1855. For anyone who was entranced with “Little Women,” this book is sure to delight. With More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

his book calls to me, to every woman of every age, who has ever curled up in chair and read with all her heart pouring out onto the page for Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. This book is for all of us who cried and hoped and gasped for the Little Women who taught us so well what it's like to be a real girl; girls as pure as Beth were too good for this earth. Girls as steady as Meg would always find their way, if a bit predictably. Amy made us hate and forgive our own vanities. But it was Jo who captured More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

Marcie rated it:

I spent a lot of time in my pre-teen years in love with the writing of Louisa May Alcott. Little Women was and still is a favorite of mine. I wanted to be one of the March girls. In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly O' Conner McNees visits the 'what if ' possibilities of Louisa May Alcott's life. What if Louisa fell in love with a man. Would she be willing to give up everything she dreams about? Can she live by her pen alone? These questions are what lured me into this novel.
T More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

Katri rated it:

I really enjoyed reading this book, but I had one major issue with it. I've recently read quite a few contemporary books of fiction that take facts from the life of a famous author and create stories that very well could have happened, but didn't. I don't think this should be done. If I were to be a famous author someday, I would HATE for some future author to make up stories about what they think I did with my life, and what they think I was like.

This is one of those books. I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 22, 2010

Velma rated it:

What if Louisa May Alcott, renowned author of Little Women, spent the summer of 1855 engaged in romance, torn between her love of freedom and the love of an all too flesh-and-blood man, only to destroy any and all evidence of it at the end of her life? This is the premise of the debut novel from Ms. McNees, and a clever one at that. Too much romance for me, but the historical setting - the intellectual & political fervor of mid-19th Century Boston and it's environs, particularly the Transcendent More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Misfit rated it:

"...Jo would have ceased to be Jo if she had agreed to marry Laurie."

This book is a "what if" account of the supposed "lost summer" of author Louisa May Alcott. The story begins in 1855 as the Alcott family moves to Walpole, New Hampshire after a relative offers them a home for the summer (Louisa's transcendentalist father Branwell had a rather unique view of working/sponging off of others for a living). Louisa meets Joseph Singer and Joseph *courts* he More...

13 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Jillian rated it:

Wow! This was an incredible book. So honest and respectful of the real Louisa May Alcott. The book is fictional, yes, and at first I had trouble processing the intrusion of fiction into the life of a real writer, whose work I treasure. But then I made myself imagine sitting in a room with McNees, knowing she loves Louisa as I do, and hearing her say, "What if?" Then telling the story aloud. And after that, I was immersed. I definitely want to reread. Definitely respect the writer and h More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 16, 2010

Maryellen rated it:

I don't know what page I'm on -- I'm close to the end but don't want to finish it. It's fiction and kind of written in the style of "Little Women" with lots of quotes in front of the chapters from LMA's works and other Transcendentalists. I grew up on LMA's books so this is a delight!

Well, I did finish it -- it was a very satisfactory ending and a delightful book! I highly recommend it.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2010

Athena rated it:

Update:
I've finished reading The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott and it was a highly entertaining book which brought me into the lives of Alcott's family and the possibilities of Louisa May Alcott's private life.
The book was very well researched and brings to life an authoress whose fiery personality and romantic disposition are usually only seen through her characters.

I've won a copy of this book through First Reads and I am very excited about reading it! I love Louisa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 10, 2011

Eldra rated it:

So far, this is a wonderful look at the Transcendentalists and what it meant to be a young woman in that time period. Now that I've finished, I think that the book is an interesting blend of fiction and history. It was difficult to imagine a 48 year old Louisa as an arthritic woman having difficulty moving. All in all, a good read.

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Aug 23, 2011

Robyn rated it:

What's not to love if it's written like Alcott, or Austen. I am enjoying every page, especially as a fan of Little Women, since Louisa is compared (by her self) to Jo. Wishing her life might have turned out different though...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Megan rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Jessica rated it:

I got this book a couple of days ago and read it so fast, I didn't even have time to add it to my "currently reading" list! I really loved this book and having travelled in areas of New England where parts of the book are written, I was easily able to recreate the atmosphere easily in my minds eye. Of course it helps to read this when your own atmosphere and weather put you in a "curl up with a good book" sort of mood.

This story imagines a historical-fictionalized More...

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Jul 12, 2011

Trish rated it:

Please make this book into a movie! This was one of those books that once I started I couldn't put down but I didn't want it to end. Even though I knew The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott was a work of historical faction/fiction, I was hoping she would marry Joseph Singer, be happy & be able to be the writer she was meant to be. Alas...I found myself swept up in the life of the Alcott's: pitying Bronson, but feeling angry at him for his selfishness, putting his happiness ahead of his own fam More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 11, 2011

Jenny rated it:

Oh, I loved this book so much!! In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly O'Connor McNees tells the story of the author of Little Women. The main thing I knew about Louisa May Alcott prior to reading this book was that she wrote Little Women and that she never married. Now, I honestly don't know that I've ever read all the way through Little Women... I know I read the Great Illustrated Classics version for children when I was young, and later I read maybe half of the actual version but just More...

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May 25, 2011

Nicky rated it:

The more I read about Louisa May Alcott the more I wonder about her. This author apparently felt the same way, and was moved by her personal research to write this fictional account of a summer in her life, inventing a love story to fill some of the gaps in her journals and letters. This is not unreasonable, in that LMA was known to have burned and edited her personal papers, due to the unceasing interest in her personal life (early celebrity stalkers).
The book moved quickly, and provide More...

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Dec 01, 2010

Susan rated it:

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, the debut novel of Kelly O’Connor McNees, was the book that began my current reading binge last May. My husband, bless his heart, found this book and bought it for me and I will always be grateful. The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott then led to my reading of Louisa May Alcott The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen (something I had had on my bookshelf since February), and then this blog was born.

The reading of these two books was a waters More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2010

Julie rated it:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! There's basically nothing I didn't like about this book. The pace was perfect. The characters were incredible. The setting was awesome. The book, although a fiction story about a romance of Miss Alcott's, was completely believable, and I took the bait hook, line, and sinker! Mrs. McNees (the bees' knees, I might add) learned L.M. Alcott inside and out through her research, and I feel I know her now myself.

Little Women is not only a favorite book of mine--i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2010

Diane rated it:

Little Women is the first book that I actually remember reading, in the second grade. Like everyone else who read Little Woman, I admired Marmee and wondered whether I would grow up to be like Amy, Beth, Jo or Meg March. Later, I learned that Alcott modeled Jo, the independent free-spirited writer, after herself. McNees was moved by her love of Little Women to learn more about Alcott (who never married) and her research has culminated in this book, in which McNees imagines a love affair betw More...

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Jul 26, 2010

Agatha rated it:

This is one author's imaginative vision of how this one particular summer in Louisa May Alcott's summer may have transpired. The author wondered why LMA never married, then realized that there were no letters or diaries from this summer in LMA's life, conjectured that she could have had a love affair but then destroyed any paper evidence of it (letters, diaries, et al.), and then set out to describe such a summer, sprinkling in heavily other details of what life would have been like during that More...

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Jul 23, 2010

Aban (Aby) rated it:

This is a fictitious account of a year in Alcott's life, when she and her family moved for the summer to Walpole, New Hampshire. The author invents a romance that Alcott might have had with a young man (also fictitious), Joseph Singer, who would be her inspiration for Laurie in "Little Women".

There were a few points in the novel that I found interesting. In McNees' book, Alcott is critical of her parents, even while loving them. In "Little Women", she depicted the More...

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Jun 27, 2010

Colleen rated it:

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees is the fictional account of a summer spent in Walpole, MA by LMA and her family. The novel is an interesting combination of history and fiction - the Alcott family did spend the summer of 1855 in Walpole and many other elements of the novel are historically accurate but the story told in the novel is the author's creation . . . and it is delightful!

The Alcotts arrive in Walpole in July 1855. Because Louisa's father, Bronson, More...

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Jun 22, 2010

Cindy rated it:

Louisa May Alcott is one of the most beloved literary figures in American history. Her book Little Women, has never been out of circulation, and it’s been adapted for the screen and stage many times. As Little Women is widely known to be somewhat autobiographical, it’s easy for readers to feel they know Louisa May as well as they know Jo, her fictional counterpart.

I would expect this familiarity would make writing a novel about Louisa and her real family daunting, especially for firs More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 21, 2010

Diane rated it:

Most women can recall with fondness reading Louisa May Alcott's Little Women when we were girls. I can still see the cover of my book: chocolate brown, with a color illustration of the March girls. Little Women was one of the first books I can remember reading that gave me a sense that female relationships were important, and that is was OK to be whomever you were.

Kelly O'Connor NcNees has taken the life of Louisa May Alcott and reimagined a pivotal period of her life in this histori More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 23, 2010

Rebekah rated it:

Just on the cusp of international fame as a writer, Louisa May Alcott and her family move to the hamlet of Walpole, New Hampshire in the summer of 1855. Bronson Alcott, full-time philosopher and zero-time bread-winner, moves the family into a house generously on loan from family — just another chapter in the Alcott’s life of borrowing in order to sleep and eat. Bronson won’t compromise his transcendental ideals to merely put bread in his daughers’ mouths.

Louisa, exhausted from years More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2010

Beth rated it:

I recently added free editions of Little Women, Little Men and Jo's Boys to my Kindle, and was delighted to receive a review copy of this title in the mail. I feel like I got a lot more out of it, with the story of Little Women fresh in my mind, than I would have if I'd not read it for years.

The acclaimed author of Little Women was a notable letter writer and diarist throughout her whole life - and was infamous for burning her writing and correspondence as she carefully cultivated th More...

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