The best way I can think to describe this follow-up to Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is "overwrought." This edition has a short interview with the author in the back, where Alcott's Marmee is described as a "goody goody," and that description isn't wrong. The March parents, in the original, are both almost unfeasibly good, so I get the sense that a lot of March, which describes the dad's experience as a chaplain in the American Civil War, was designed to puncture that impression, and it does.

Arguably, though, it goes too far in the other direction. Yes, war is hell and so forth, but this book has multiple instances of murder, torture, and rape. There's incest. There's even spousal abuse between the Marches. A young child also gets disemboweled, so there's that. Mr. March is a chronic whiner, Marmee is a bitch. If this were a completely original novel, i.e. not a distant sequel to another text, I might be a little more tolerant because it's still an interesting read. I enjoyed it, mostly. But as a follow-up to Alcott, it comes across as deliberately reactionary. It practically screams You can't tell me what to do, Louisa!!! So, yeah. Adequate, but as subtle as a brickbat, and very determined to leave you feeling deflated. I suspect that deflation is meant to do you good.