From my LibraryThing review:

Comforting and agitating simultaneously, Brooks’ tangle on the classic “Little Women” flaunts idealism and its consequences, pitting the moral cleanliness of protagonist Mr. March against the travesties and reality of the Civil War.

Intended to fill the gaps of Little Women’s patriarch during the time he spends away, fighting down south, “March” is as grim and detailed as Little Women is hopeful and slightly otherworldly.

The plot is good enough, the descriptions rank with heady detail, and March is an interesting fellow: at times pathetic, at times far too unbelievably socially moral. I mean, really: a vegetarian abolitionist feminist in 1862? Brooks, in her afterword, claims she modeled him on Louisa May Alcott’s real father, but he seems like such a corner case that it’s a bit hard to take. There are times when March’s shocked reaction to racism or violence seem patterned off of the current frame of reference–that is, anachronistic.

The work was well-researched, or at least seemed to know what battles were where and who was fighting in them. The story had little climaxes and cliffhangers that probably make this little novel a crossover–you don’t have to be a historical fiction nut or a Civil War buff to take a bite out of it.

Recommended. I feel that perhaps if I had read this book during a slightly more receptive phase it would have touched me more deeply.

**** (of 5)