Book Club: Little Women edition

I recently decided that I needed something more in my life than work and being a lump at home (though there is nothing wrong with lumpdom I support it 100%) and so Claires invited me to join her book club. She told me the book for next month. and then said "but you've read little women...you can join this month too."

and though yes I have read Little women (EONS ago) and though yes I do have a mind like a steel trap and though yes I do own the movie and watch it with some regularity I thought I can read this book in 5 days (even though I normally average a book a month if I'm lucky) and so I picked up a copy.

and then nickface decided that he wanted to be in book club too. and so we began our weekend. noses stuck in our books attempting to get through the 450 page book. and then gave up because we got antsy. and so downloaded the audiobook and began our weekend of silent working while listening to Little Women.

now let it be known that I love books on tape. this was how I got through the Hardy I had to read and despised in high school. and so my discovery of LibriVox a public domain audiobook library was magnificent. or so I thought.

as it turns out people volunteer to read these great literary classics for the enjoyment of others. but the problem with volunteers is you can't say no. so our weekend consisted of hours 11 hours of alternating voices reading chapter after chapter of our book of choice, some voices good, some voices leaving us diving for our books to read out loud ourselves so as to not have to bear yet another sentence of from the mumbly computer-reader-y voice, and longing for the opportunity to hear our own voices for the first time in hours.

this sets the stage for our monday afternoon as we were settling in for our required 3.5 hours of listening we had to get in that afternoon, when claires announces happily that she has finished the whole book during her bus ride back from cleveland, ready to inform us that in this book, (spoiler alert!) BETH DOESNT DIE! in fact all that stuff besides the first year isnt in this book...and so we decided that the movie must be combing several books.

but then I got to thinking...wait? WHAT? BETH DOESNT DIE? this book only has the first year? but then why have we fast forwarded for years, why has Meg had her babies, Amy gone to Europe, and Jo headed off to New York? all that has happened in part II of the book.

and then I got to mocking...summoning Claires back to video chat. to deliver the "good" news the the voracious reader on the other side. YOU ONLY READ PART 1! Beth does die. and Laurie settles for Amy after the rest of the March girls turn him down. all is right in the world. it just takes another 200 pages to get there.