Book Review of Marmee by Sarah Miller

Little Women is one of my favorite books, and I loved the movie, too (both versions bring me joy).

In the book, Marmee (Peg March) is a mother of 4 daughters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. She loves her children. She loves children that aren't hers. She finds joy in helping those around her. Every day she writes in her diary, and her entries are sometimes heartbreaking. Her husband is off at war, and it's up to her to keep her family alive. Hannah is an Irish woman hired to help clean and cook around the house.

The March's can't afford to pay Hannah what she deserves, but Hannah honestly feels like the March's are more family to her than she's ever had. She's raised the girls right along with Peg. They have gone through life together.

Loyalty is not a fine enough word for the devotion Hannah has shown to us. It is fidelity. Her confession has left me in a state I cannot put a name to—both sickened and gladdened. All this time, I have not known how to thank her, and all this time our Family has been giving her what she most needed without knowing it.

Marmee raises her children and tries to instill honesty, integrity, and responsibility in their actions. She tries to instill in Amy not to be selfish and in Meg to stop valuing worldly things so much.

And that is the difference between Aunt March and me. She prizes her own comfort above all else, while I cannot enjoy a moment’s rest so long as I am plagued by the knowledge of anyone in need.

Reading her entries always made me so thankful I wasn't living in that period or had to do with a husband away at war.

Amos is away at war. So Hannah and Marmee are the ones who take care of the house and raise the children. It's not easy to raise four girls, but the way Marmee wrote about it in her diary was beautiful. She made it seem like it was a gift to raise your children, and it is a gift even when things get hard. They are Christians and try to do right by God, follow the Bible, and be honorable.

Amos, her husband, is also a pastor. So when he is home, he shuts himself in his office and prepares sermons.

Marmee is such a strong woman. She respected her husband beyond anything. Amos would send home letters at war, and, in those letters, he would send home money to help pay for food, raise the girls, and take care of the house.

The problem was that the amount he sent to the home month after month was less and less. How Peg was able to feed her children and keep the house up to par is beyond me.

Yet even beyond that, her entries showed her love for her husband. She missed him and respected him. She knew he'd help those around him. He was never a man to pay attention to material things. He didn't know how much it cost to feed a family of four. Marmee did her best. Her children never went hungry. She pressed on them the need to help others.

Often she wrote about the Hummels. Her entries were so devasting sometimes. Then, unfortunately, Mrs. Hummel's husband died, and her children died from scarlet fever. I won't go into too much detail because it will spoil the book, but the love Mrs. March has for this family is shown in her entries.

She describes each character in the book as if you are sitting with her and they are across from you. You can see them; her descriptions and dialogue make you feel like you are also experiencing the conversation.

That is what good writing is. It immerses you into the story and makes you feel like you are standing there with the speaker or the main character—the person telling the story, in this case, Mrs. March.

This book pulled at my heartstrings. To see what Marmee went through with Beth's journey in her sickness and death just destroyed me. The love that a mother has for her child is like nothing else. Her entries about Beth's sickness and degrading health were tough to read. It's hard to watch Beth and her journey in the movie or read about it in the original Little Women, but reading it from Beth's mother's point of view was another devasting matter. She was reading this as a mom made it even more difficult not to shed a tear during this section of the book.

After I finished this book, I had to hug it to my chest---as all true readers know and do after completing such a satisfying and emotional read.

Marmee was a book I will gladly pick up and read a few pages of whenever I get the urge to be back in the world of Little Women. So now, excuse me while I read Little Women and throw the movie on in the background because I love it so much.