The Spring Girls

Todd’s contemporary update of Little Women is an entertaining take on Louisa May Alcott’s beloved original. Meredith Spring lives on the Fort Cyprus military base in New Orleans with her four daughters: 19-year-old Meg, who dreams of marrying an army officer and escaping her less-than-glitzy home life; homeschooled Beth, who does her best to help her mother run the household; the passionate 16-year-old Jo, who has no interest in marriage and longs to travel the world and write searing pieces on social justice; and sweet-natured 12-year-old Amy, who looks to her sisters to shape the woman she will become. Their father, Frank, an army officer, is overseas for a year in Mosul, and a distinct pall hangs over the home as they worry for his safety; the girls are also concerned their mother may be falling apart under the strain of his absence. Told in alternating chapters by Meg, Jo, Beth, and Meredith, this enjoyable novel explores the bonds of sisterhood, first love, and teenage angst, and while it echoes Alcott’s novel, it provides a refreshing 21st-century update. (Jan.)