Be still my heart. I am obsessed with the retellings in this series and this story was no exception. I have always struggled with reading Little Women but this retelling felt effortless. I was hooked from page one and could not get enough.

I've never read the original Little Women so I can't speak to how So Many Beginnings compares/differs from it but I enjoyed this as a story of its own (which is what I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be anyway!). I was initially interested in this title because I love Morrow's writing in her YA fantasy books but this one didn't have the same magical quality of the writing. Which I guess makes sense because it's not a fantasy novel.

The letters the father wrote to his wife and daughters were very sweet and made me emotional. I'm not an expert in the Civil War but I was surprised to learn that the Roanoke Colony was a real settlement for formerly enslaved Black americans. I'm very thankful to this book for introducing me to this part of history!

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

As a lover of Little Women, a woman of color, and a person who often feels excluded in historical fiction I loved this book and look forward to sharing it with librarians. I anticipate many looking up Roanoke Island and the civil war. I think the title is perfect. This isn't a re-telling, it's a remix.

I really enjoyed this remix of Little Women. As someone who loved the original since childhood, I wasn't sure I'd like this retelling, but it works really well! The author did a beautiful job of maintaining the feel of the original whole creating her own fully developed characters and story.

This book was a great retelling of a classic. It had the same tone as Little Women but had enough of a difference to keep me interested. In some ways, these differences made it more compelling than the original.

I love diverse retelling so much, it's something I care a lot about and have spent a lot of time on. So when I saw this title I was super excited, unfortunately I just couldn't get through it.

Terrific remix of "Little Women." Interesting play on the original with new ideas and refreshing modifications. Great cover!

DNF

I could not get through this book. I tried to sit it down and pick it back up, but the story just didn't grab me. Perhaps lover's of the classic Little Women will enjoy this book more than I did.

A remix of Little Women that truly stands on its own. You learn so much about slavery, about Freedman's Colonies, about life and love. I really really liked it.

I love this remix! Previously, when I read and watched Little Women, I enjoyed the story but felt disappointed by the trajectory of most of the characters. In this rendition, not only do I feel like the March family gets a better plot, but more historical context and significance is added. Although each of the characters keep their original nicknames, I love the full names Morrow chose for them like Amethyst for Amy. The multiple point-of-views also helped me connect more to all of the sisters.

This novel adds more nuance to the popular understanding of the Civil War, abolitionists, and racism. The March sisters were formerly enslaved and now live in the Freedmen's colony of Roanoke Island, which is also on shaky ground. Their opportunities are limited despite their good fortune that their family owns a house. It is really cool to see Liberia, a country originally founded in order to get rid of "free blacks" in the United States, connected in this retelling. Roanoke Island and Liberia aren't usually a part of the curriculum for history classes and courses on American History. In fact, this book has inspired me to learn more about Roanoke Island.

I mostly read this as an audiobook, which was helpful for me but I also felt like the narrator didn't switch her voice up enough for me to distinguish between the sisters. When reading this book, please be sure to read the Author's Note as it is powerful and perfectly connects her book to the broader context of today's issues surrounding History and Memory.

So Many Beginnings is a great book for History and English courses. I recommend this novel to everyone!

This adaptation of Little Women was really well done. Set in Roanoke, a freed person's colony off the coast of North Carolina it follows Mamie and her four daughters. They must deal with ups and downs, love and loss, but always have each other as sisters. I really liked the adaptation. and learned about the freedmen's colonies as well.

I'll be using this as a literature-circles option in my young-adult literature class in the future! A great remix of Alcott's original.

I like the premise of this book, but it was not the right book for. I did not enjoy what I read and did not finish. Sorry

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sharing this title. All opinions are my own.

While billed as a retelling of Little Women, I think it's more accurate as a stand alone story that takes elements of little women: 4 sisters, set during the Civil War. While the March sisters are a genteel family living in New England, with cares of school and parties and family life hovering over them, the Civil War doesn't impact them greatly beyond the absence of their father due to his service. Morrow focuses on the lives and stories of Black women during the Civil War, adding in nuanced details unique to her retelling. Recommended for readers of historical fiction, black interest, and fans of Little Women.

We always talk about how Little Woman is such a universal story. But can we call it truly universal if it takes place during the American Civil War and never mentions Black Americans? Nope. That’s why this is a remix, not a retelling. All the universals of sisterhood, romance, family, feminism are here, but with a version that doesn’t erase half of the American population. So Many Beginnings is the only version you’ll ever want to read.

Amazing! Love this take on the classic novel with a good commentary on slavery and freedom and sisterhood. Can’t wait to see what BC Morrow does next!

always love to read fresh takes on classic stories and that’s what intrigued me to read So Many Beginnings. It’s been years since I’ve read any version of Little Women but jumping into the story my memories came flooding back. I love the reimagined look and feel of this book and how chooses a colony as its focus and the time set in history. The Roanoke Colony seems to be a safe haven for Black people but in the back of their minds the residents are still wary. They know the fight for freedom is far from over, especially with their father being on duty in the Union army.

One of the things I admired about this novel and the original Little Women is how it displays the sisters’ very different personalities while also portraying a tight-knit family that has each other’s back. Jo is the imaginative writer, Amy is a dancer, Beth creates beautiful clothes, and Meg is a teacher with a nurturing caretaker vibe. These qualities make them stand out individually but also bring them together.

What I really enjoyed about this version of Little Women is how it uses small bits and pieces of the original work but makes it into a novel that stands on its own. Morrow’s retelling also focuses on a point the horrors of slavery and the difficulties of colonies during and after the Civil War and the changes it brought. While it is a novel about sisters and their close relationship it paints a vivid portrait of how we try to cover up things from the past. It’s about reckoning with history, overcoming tragedy, and these sisters grappling with the fact that they still have limitations to their freedom. These aspects really added to the historical parts and I can tell a lot of details came from heavy amounts of research. I think this is a novel for people who love Little Women and want to learn more about perspectives from a time of history where those types of stories have been omitted. I can’t wait to read more of these remixed classics!

Wow I loved this book. Real talk, Little Women isn't my favorite. I read it as a young person and enjoyed it but decided to try it as an adult and it is just too white. I appreciate the art of it, the beauty of the story, and I love the movie and musical, but as I try to read more books with people who look like me in them, the OG Little Women just isn't it. But So Many Beginnings is PERFECT. It's haunting. It gives you the nostalgia of LW while being absurdly deep. It's like a history lesson, a romance, and a story of strong sisterhood all wrapped up in one. I have a ridiculous amount of highlights because I enjoyed it so much.

"It seemed there was no age or gender among white folk that made them take care with Black people, or understand when they were causing them pain."

The characters were rich - remixed from the original but still their own people. I want this to be a movie. And I want everyone to read this.

"I don't think home can be found on these shores. Not after what's been done." WHEW.

I would also recommend reading the acknowledgements and grappling with what we don't learn in school about the Civil War and post Civil War era. We are told that Black people just stopped being slaves and then it's a quick Reconstruction into Jim Crow. We don't learn about the freedpeople colonies. The amounts of well to to Black people and freed slaves who moved to (and experienced racism in) the North. Bethany gives us a history lesson wrapped up in a beautiful retelling and I just implore you to read it.

A great story with compelling characters and plot line, however, I felt like it was less of a remix of Little Women and more of a stand alone story. I feel that by billing it as a remix, it did itself a disservice. The story is not quite parallel to Little Women - rather, it is it's own journey into the lives of black sisters during the Civil War. Recommended as a strong historical fiction novel.