March by Geraldine Brooks

I finally finished reading March. It took me a while to get through because I really wanted to concentrate and really take in the book.

March is a book from the perspective of Mr. March (the dad from the book Little Women). I LOVED Little Women, so I was excited to see what this book would bring me. It begins on a battlefield during the Civil War. Mr. March is already painted as a caring, giving person as soon as you begin reading. He tries to save a soldier who doesn't know how to swim, but in the end has to let go in order to save his own life. This immediately lets you know the kind of person he is. He feels guilty for having to let go and it haunts him.

In the book, you also get to see how Mr. March and Marmee meet. It's a really nice perspective to see. Throughout the book it cuts to his younger days back when he was a peddler and somewhat of a preacher. You also find out that, after marrying Marmee, they participate in the Underground Railroad.

Mr. March also is in love with a black servant of a plantation owner. The servant makes several apperances in the book and she is really an amazing woman. One of March's recollections about his past, when he first met her (Grace), is staying at the Plantation and secretly teaching one of the slaves daughters to read. This is against the law and Grace is caught and beat in front of Mr. March. Just like the soldier's death he takes so personally, this too he considers to be his fault and never forgives himself.

Mr. March comes back in contact with Grace and is caught in a compromising situation by a fellow soldier. March is immediately reassigned in order to avoid scandal. This time he is sent to another plantation, where he is to teach the slaves. He is so excited, for he lives to teach. He stationed with a man who is a certified attorney, who is broke and making sure the crops get sowed. As with Grace, March becomes attached to many of the slaves and cares for them all. He enjoys teaching them. He also contracts a deadly fever that will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. It is one that comes back multiple times before the book is over. But the Confederate return to the plantation and try to find him (since he is teaching the slaves and therefore, obviously a N-word-I hate the word- "lover") . In order to try and get him to come out, they hurt his friend the attorney and kill a slave. But March hides.

After trying to get the slaves back from the Confederate soldiers, he again, collapses from the fever. He is taken to a boat taking patients to a hospital up North by a mute slave. This is where we see Grace again, for she is working with Surgeon Hale at Blank Hospital. Marmee gets word of his fever and where he is and is called to the hospital by the surgeon. You see a little bit of her perspective on Mr. March in these last chapters.

I won't give away what happens at the hospital, but I will say that seeing as both Marmee and Grace are at the hospital, March's secret past is bound to finally become known to Marmee.

If you know Little Women, you know that March eventually goes home to his wife and 4 daughters.

I thought it was a very good book. I enjoyed learing about Mr. March and what kind of a man he was. It is a bit of a detailed book, but I enjoyed it. If you like the Civil War era, and you liked Little Women, then I think you would enjoy March. It's more of a grown up book than Little Women, but still a good read.