Reading the City: BRATISLAVA
A novel inspired by Little Women, set around MANCHESTER
21st May 2026
All Grown Up by Daisy Buchanan, a novel inspired by Little Women, set around Manchester.
I read this novel for the Grazia Book Club May 2026.
You will of course, recognise the names of the protagonists in this novel if you are at all familiar with Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women. Louisa, the mother of the motley brood, is relishing the prospect of a Christmas all on her own, maybe with the ministrations of Aunt Barb, but essentially this is her time and her agenda. Her grown up children are out in the world.
However, the fates conspire that all her girls, given one crisis or another, stumble home to interrupt her solitude, and being the welcoming mother she is, they descend on her for the duration. But weeks turn into months and soon a whole year has passed. Will, the father of the brood, is ensconced in Australia and is loath to contribute financially and now demands his share of the house, much to the disgust of the girls. He was utterly awful when – as per the original book – one of the sisters, Beth, dies and rejects calls to come home.
The story is told from different viewpoints as the girls acclimatise to their old home. They visit the elderly man across the road, and engage again with his son. They share memories and slip into old patterns, reverting to the mother-child relationships that Louisa believed had disappeared long ago. The author captures Louisa’s tortured resignation as she inevitably slips back into her role as mother and nurturer.
The author has a great eye for the specifics of the mother-daughter relationship, and writes well, with humour
and alacrity. There is incredible energy in the storytelling, which can after a while feel a touch draining as the story bowls along, breathlessly and pithily describing events and feelings. At times I distinctly felt over-stimulated. The opening of the novel was certainly promising but ultimately, I feel, the book struggled to deliver. The dialogue at times felt a little wooden and the characters felt a little stereotyped.
The novel was entertaining enough, although at points I found myself skim-reading.
Location is not a feature in this novel but the sense of a chaotic household in England is quite well rendered.
#ADPR
Tina for the TripFiction
Join team TripFiction on Social Media:
Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction) and BlueSky(tripfiction.bsky.social) and Threads (@tripfiction)
Please wait...
