Graphic Novel Review

I do love a good retelling

RATING
 4/5

Li’l Classix: Little Women

BY GRADY HENDRIX, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, RYAN DUNLAVEY

I wrote this and I still can’t get over how good it is. Louisa May Alcott is probably so jealous she’s going to rise from the grave and haunt Ryan and I. Actually, I hope she haunts him first. I hate ghosts.―

Grady Hendrix, Li’l Classix: Little Women

Story Synopsis

Creepy boyfriends! Scarlett fever! Poverty! Writer Grady Hendrix (Satan Loves You) and cartoonist Ryan Dunlavey (Action Philosophers) translate Louisa May Alcott’s 185,644 word required reading perennial Little Women into a snappy comic strip collection you can read at your locker in-between lunch and 3rd period English! PLUS an original, HORRIFYING Louisa May Alcott biography written and illustrated by the authors.

My Thoughts

Little Women, written by Louisa May Alcott is part of the list of American masterpieces of fiction. Generations of readers have loved the heartfelt tales of the March sisters, “talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.”

Little Women taught many girls that they could look beyond “women’s work” and follow in Louisa May Alcott’s footsteps. Also, because it is so well known, it has been in print for more than 150 years and has had countless movies made about it. But, with its status of being hugely recognizable comes opportunities to twist and riff on it.

Grady Hendrix and illustrator Ryan Dunlavey (Illustrator) had a lot of fun twisting and turning Li’l Classix: Little Women and writing what many a modern reader are thinking. Laurie’s name… lol. Yes, more please. Beth and scarlet fever, absolutely. Hey look, Amy is kinda a spoiled brat.

While this comic will be funny to those who haven’t read the story, it is hilarious to those familiar with the source material and very much worth the 15 minutes it takes to read it. Check it out.