Belittled Women by Amanda Sellet

Belittled Woman features a contemporary Meg, Jo, and Amy reluctantly participating in their mother’s pet project: a tourist attraction reenacting scenes from a certain 19^th-century novel.

Belittled Women by Amanda Sellet. HarperCollins (Clarion), 2022, 371 pages.

Reading Level: Teen, ages 12-15

Recommended for: ages 13-16

Trapped in a girl novel!

Every teen girl’s dream job must be to play the role of Jo March with her all-girl family in live reenactments of Little Women. . . right? But this is Jo Porter’s life. It’s her mother’s dream, not hers: when Mom inherited the Kansas farmhouse, her bright idea was to open the house to tourists and play Marmee to her own progeny (Meg, Jo, and Bethamy, better known as Amy). Beth is recruited from the public each year and the town’s star athlete, who also has theater pretentions, plays Laurie with relish. Where the family is concerned, Mom is patient and long-suffering, Meg walks through her part (and her life) with airy detachment, and Amy has adjusted to her role so well she’s insufferable. But Jo can’t wait to flee Jo March and just be herself, whoever that is.

At least this Little Women season will be different, because a New York producer is interested in filming their story as part of a series on midwestern attractions (meaning, oddities). Said producer comes with a son who serves as her cameraman and stirs a tincture of cosmopolitan dash into Jo’s weak tea. He’s cute, but so is Meg’s ex-boyfriend, who’s been a friend to Jo all along but could be more. If she wanted that. But what she wants is to shed her ugly plaid dresses and exchange candlelight for bright city lights—maybe even New York lights.

The grass is not always greener . . .

It’s an entertaining concept enhanced by witty dialogue. Sellet has a genuine humorous streak that, while it leans heavily on snark, is often really funny: “Our mother might as well have been a Printerest board in human form, all soft-focus daydreams with minimal follow-through.” The snark gets wearisome at times, and all three sisters show little nuance in their prevailing characteristics. There’s also some coarse language (though no profanity, that I recall), and contemporary moral values that would make Louisa May Alcott blush, tough-minded though she was. What sets Belittled Women apart is Jo Porter learning some of the same lessons as Jo March: that small ambitions can be as satisfying as big ones and that bright city lights come with their own deceptions. And nothing can replace family, however challenging it may be.

Considerations:

• Note the coarse language mentioned above, though there’s not much of it.
• One unsatisfactory make-out session.
• Even though Jo doesn’t turn out to be a lesbian (unlike some “remixes”), the characters take a casual attitude toward homosexuality: there’s a brief mention of Mom’s past romance with another woman, and a hint that “Laurie” could be attracted to either sex.

Overall Rating: 3.75

• Worldview/moral value: 3.75
• Artistic/literary value: 4   

Read more about our ratings here.                 

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Reviews: Of contemporary adaptations of Little Women there appears to be no end. See our reviews of Littler Women and More to the Story.
• Reflection: In 2018 Little Women observed its sesquicentennial. See our thoughts about its Enduring Appeal. Also, Mitali Perkins’ discussion of the book in Steeped in Stories is well worth a read.

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