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Little Vampire Women
  Little Vampire Women by Louisa May Alcott and Lynn Messina
by Louisa May Alcott and Lynn Messina
   

       
Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March are poor but reside happily with their parents. Their father is away at war and their mother, whom they call Marmee, is determined to raise them to be respectable ladies- vampire ladies, that is! The Marches believe in helping the poor and they never dine on humans. That doesn’t stop the vampire slayers from targeting them, however. Will the March sisters find happiness… eternally?

LITTLE WOMEN was one of my favorite books growing up so I couldn’t resist seeing how Lynn Messina would put a vampire spin on the storyline. And oh, what a fun twist the vampires add! Lynn Messina keeps the original flavor (pun intended) of the tale while inserting the vampires in so cleverly that the story flows smoothly along. One can almost believe the footnotes that hint at editing of other classics.

The footnotes provided a nice context to the story. I actually found myself wishing there had been more- and I’m normally not a fan of footnotes in fiction as they usually tend to bog a story down. Instead, these footnotes lent credence to the idea that vampires were among the general population and a part of the literature of the time.

Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are all portrayed quite convincingly as vampires. By keeping them on a non-human diet, the inclusion of the vampire theme provides a hilarious note in an otherwise uplifting tale. The feminist tone of the original is kept in LITTLE VAMPIRE WOMEN, maybe even a bit more so for modern day readers with Jo joining Gentlemen Jackson’s Preparatory Salon for the Training of Vampire Defenders. The two styles mix quite well as a parody and gave this reader a chance to relive the past joys of an old favorite in an entirely new light. Enjoyable!

Publisher: HarperTeen (May 2010)
  
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Reviewed by Debbie, Debbie Wiley Book Reviews


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