Little Vampire Women

by Lynn Messina

"Christmas wont be Christmas without any corpses."

The dear, sweet March sisters are back, and Marmee has told them to be good little women. Good little vampire women, that is. That's right: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy have grown up since you last read their tale, and now they have (much) longer lives and (much) more ravenous appetites.

Marmee has taught them well, and so they live by an unprecedented moral code of abstinence . . . from...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061976253
• ISBN13: 9780061976254
• Release Date: May 2010
• Publisher: Harperteen
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 and higher

Customer Reviews

A (hee hee) DISGUSTING (ha ha) and APPALLING (har) pastiche (heh)

This novel mashes an abridged Signature Classics - Little Women (Signature Classic Series) with an in-vogue vampire slant. The Marches of this tale are all vampires, though the well-to-do Laurence neighbors are not. I imagine that Lynn Messina read the original "Little Women" as a girl (as I did myself, many times), because she's true to the spirit of the original. I'm so familiar with the story that I can open the book at any point and relocate myself within it instantly. So the idea of a take-off pastiche was repellent, until I read the opening lines, "'Christmas won't be Christmas without any corpses,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug." The March girls are now part of a "humanitarian" vampire family that doesn't feed on humans, which is pretty funny if you know about Bronson Alcott's dietary ideas about fruitarianism for his family (and the nice dinners for himself in society). Vampires and humans live uneasily in society, but humanitarian vampires such as the Marches do what they can to promote harmony and understanding amongst their human neighbors. Rather than being an aspiring writer, in "Little Vampire Women," Jo is an aspiring vampire defender. There's a whole new plot line, with Jo attempting to find out who is causing a rash of vampire illnesses, which freshens the familiar story for old readers. If you want to be struck anew with Meg's romance, or grieve over Beth's long illness, this is the book to do it, since we never know just what Lynn Messina is going to do to the family next. The vampire fighting is insufficient to carry this pastiche on its own, however, and even as a pacifist I found myself wanting more action. So I believe this spin-off will appeal more to those of us with a modern sensibility who truly loved Signature Classics - Little Women (Signature Classic Series) in our girlhood. I do wish there'd been more footnotes. The current ones are a hoot, with references to vampire literature and the growing social acceptance of them in polite human society.