The very lovely Dawn from “She Is Too Fond of Books” recently lent me a copy of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees. If you know me – even a little bit – you know my complete obsession with the Alcott family. Yes, I know odd little facts about them, have read just about everything written about them, and even can be found occasionally cavorting in a hoop skirt at their museum (Orchard House) in Concord, MA. Ms. McNees has taken a summer that the Alcotts truly did visit and stay in Walcott, New Hampshire and created a tale of lost love for Louisa. It is evident that she researched her Alcotts. She does a wonderful job of tying in their philosophies, their beliefs, and their real life into this imagined daily life. However, this is a work of fiction and I just couldn’t suspend my knowledge of the Alcotts in order to enjoy it. Ms. McNees is a wonderful writer — the problem was me. Call me inflexible, call me rigid, go ahead and just call me weird, but I could not get through this book. I didn’t care what was going to happen and I knew it wasn’t true anyways, so I lost my motivation.

I know that lots of my blogging friends have read and enjoyed this novel, so please feel free to comment and provide a link to your post so that my readers can read another (more normal I suspect) perspective!