My wife and I read this book within two days as a small challenge for ourselves so that we could go and see the new movie (since I don’t like to see movies before their accompanying books). This book was much better than I expected and I enjoyed it immensely, although it is far from perfect. The book is often touted as a novel that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. That seemed like something of a stretch. However, now that I’ve read it, I can heartily agree with those comments. Something about the simplistic problems presented in the book and the wide variety of characters makes it appealing to various ages. The book made me cry twice and I don’t cry often when reading, so that says something about Alcott’s ability to get emotional responses. However, the book have a few antisemitic descriptions of Jewish people, which upset and surprised me. I know that Alcott was an abolitionist so I hadn’t expected racism in the book but it was there. Also, the book only gets 3.5 stars instead of 4 or 5 not only due to the antisemitism but also because the ending felt a bit flat, which was actually quite surprising for me since earlier parts of the novel were so strong.