This lived-in take on Little Women explores the tribulations of sisterhood trapped within the confines of a classic novel while offering a mix of teen angst, love triangles, and Alcott quotes galore. Sellet's debut follows three Porter sisters g, Amy, and protagonist Jo o, trapped inside their mother's dedication to the family business, a "living literary experience" called "Little Women Live!," are rebelling against it in their own ways. When a magazine writer and her son come to town, Jo gets a taste of what might exist outside the world of Alcott's novel and the guts to finally try to break the mold. More of a "what if" than a retelling, this novel will interest fans of the original but will also appeal to teens who are looking to be the weavers of their own tales, clobber their bratty sister a bit, and savor the "almost" moments with the cute boy next door. With quick, breezy prose and relatable dialogue, the Porter sisters may not rival the Marches, but they leave their own mark.

Tensions-romantic and otherwise-abound for high school junior Jo Porter, better known (though still not all that well, to her dismay) for portraying Jo March in her family's theater production, Little Women Live!For the past seven years, Jo and her sisters, Meg, a senior, and Amy, a sophomore-in the absence of a fourth sister, they hold annual auditions for a Beth-have played their parts in turning their mother's favorite book into a "semiprofessional tourist attraction" on their small Kansas farm. As in Alcott's book, their father is vaguely elsewhere. From Jo's point of view the sisters' personalities track, too: Meg is pretty, Amy spoiled, and despite her wish to earn a cross-country scholarship to college, Jo gets stuck being resentfully responsible. She's got a crush on David, Meg's ex who's signed on to play John Brooke in the upcoming season. When a New York reporter comes to do a possible national feature story on the show, Jo sees her and her cute son, Hudson, as a possible way out of the life she finds stagnant. The main characters are all White except Laurie, a Black classmate with acting ambitions, and some of the Beths. The story starts out meanderingly slowly and heavy on bickering and Little Women references only existing fans will get. Eventually Jo comes into focus and the ending has honesty and heart, though some readers may crave a firmer resolution.Overly long and unevenly paced. (Fiction. 14-18)

In this lighthearted take on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women from Sellet (By the Book), a trio of Kansas siblings play their namesakes in “semiprofessional tourist attraction” Little Women Live! High school junior Jo Porter—alongside her older sister, Meg; younger sister, Amy; and a revolving door of Beth-hopefuls auditioning for a permanent role in the cast—has spent seven years performing in their mother’s Little Women–inspired theater production. Jo, frustrated that her mother’s Alcott obsession leaves her with no time to pursue her own goals, including joining the school’s track team, is desperate to regain control of her life. When deadpan New Yorker Hudson and his reporter mother arrive to write a piece on the show, Jo believes they’re her ticket out of Kansas. The Porter siblings’ personalities mirror the March sisters largely at a surface level, occasionally lending to caricature. Nevertheless, the characters’ snappy repartee is both biting and affectionate, and the premise’s cheeky inventiveness—a remix within a remix that both enacts and interrogates the source material—buoys this playful jaunt. Most characters read as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Bridget Smith, JABberwocky Literary. (Nov.)

Gr 9 Up —Jo Porter lives with her older sister, Meg, and her younger sister, Amy, in New Concord, KS; it is not a coincidence that their mom is nicknamed Marmee and is consumed by Louisa May Alcott's Little Women . The teens were bred to be actors in Little Women Live! , a small-town theme park for devotees of Alcott and the simply curious. While Meg is emotionally and physically checked-out and Amy is enthusiastically all-in, narrator Jo is conflicted. She wants to help her mom sustain the family business, especially since money is tight, but she also craves her freedom and the life of a carefree adolescent. Sellet convincingly recreates the look and feel of a close-knit 1860s New England family, but that which makes the story appealing is also its Achilles' heel: readers unfamiliar with the source material will be lost. Without sufficient background knowledge of Little Women (and even with it, at moments), the main characters will grate on readers; Jo and Amy bicker constantly to the point of irritation. While Sellet thoughtfully continues the conversation started by Alcott about society's expectations of women, the book clumsily attempts to address topics such as racial diversity and sexual orientation in a seeming endeavor to compensate for its all-white (except for Laurie) and straight cast. These moments fall flat and go nowhere, as do mentions of climate change that are thrown into the narrative and then deserted. Overall, what could have been a charming, thoughtful recreation of a beloved story is bogged down with too many missteps. VERDICT Recommended only for diehard Alcott fans.—Melissa Kazan