Two more books by Louisa May Alcott

 

     

I would put the titles of the books instead of 'two more books', but they are so long! The books are The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation: A Christmas Story and Behind a Mask; or, a Woman's Power. Just look at those titles. 

Moving along, when I wrote about Little Women I mentioned at the end of the post that the books Louisa May Alcott wrote under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard were more appealing to me. I downloaded then these two books and I was pretty eager to start reading them. Of course, it took my a while to do so and today I put in extra effort to finish reading the second book.

I won't write the entire titles from now on, I will refer to the books as The Abbot's Ghost and Behind the Mask. 

As it sometimes happens when I am enthusiastic about a book, I didn't quite enjoy these two. On one hand I should have expected it since I wasn't a fan of Little Women either. It is a good book, it's just not what I usually read. At times it was difficult for me to follow the plot because (1) it didn't fully caught my attention and (2) because of the writing style. Nothing wrong with it, it just isn't my cup of tea. The most trouble I had was figuring out who is who since the same character is sometimes referred to by different names and/or titles. 

The Abbot's Ghost

I read The Abbot's Ghost first because it is shorter. I wanted to get accustomed with the style and maybe get absorbed in the story, thus paving the way for the next book. Unfortunately it didn't happen like that. 

The Abbot's Ghost is supposedly a horror short story—if the title wasn't indication enough—but there wasn't anything horror to me. It wasn't spooky and the plot overall felt underdeveloped. I was quite disappointed. You can still definitely enjoy the story, it is a nice moralising tale, but that's about it. I might have enjoyed it more if I would have read it when I was in middle school; I think it would have made an impression on me as the moralising bit is actually pretty good. 

 

Behind the Mask

I was more interested in this one than The Abbot's Ghost. The synopsis is intriguing: a cunning woman who disguises herself in order to fool her employers and secure the family's estate for herself. Jane, the protagonist, is indeed cunning, but she kept my interest for a few chapters only. I also searched for the list of characters because I couldn't figure out who was who and accidentally read a major spoiler. From then on I had no will to read it, but I did it for the sake of this post. 

Back to Jane, if I think about it, I don't know how cunning she was or how foolish the other characters were. Maybe it was a combination of both. She wasn't implacable in her methods and she didn't completely woo everyone so is hard to give her full credit for the success of some of her actions. 

As for the story itself, it didn't keep me waiting, there's no anticipation, no I need to read what happens next! What happens next is three lines bellow. I wasn't left waiting even for a bit, apart from the start of the story when I was curious. Overall, meh. 

Although I did not enjoy these short stories as much as I expected to, I wouldn't turn you back from them. If you want to read them, by all means do it. They are both intriguing and they are pretty good. Especially if you like gothic literature or stories like... Oh, I don't know, I haven't read many in the style, but let's say Wuthering Heights or if you like TV shows like Downtown Abbey (someone said in a review that The Abbot's Ghost would fit in an episode there, don't blame me if it doesn't, I only watched the movie). And definitely give them a try if you liked Little Women or other works by Louisa May Alcott.