This journal is not a gripping novel, because it is a real-life journal, with no storyline. It's not written to let readers know all the details. And it's full of trifles with few details: Someone called today, wrote a letter to someone else, paid this much money to somebody today...etc. Readers do not know who all these people are, because LMA referred to most of them by initials, and do not attempt to explain who they are or describe how these events took place. This is a compilation of LMA's actual journals, from when she was 13 or 14, to the year of her death. So, the journals should be read and understood as a first-hand account of LMA's history that reveals only snippets of her story. It has its limitations. But I really enjoyed reading it, because LMA's writing is good, even in her journal's short passages. And I like stalking LMA :P Okay, I'm kidding. But reading her journal is "kind of" like stalking LMA's FB wall and reading all her previous posts. You get all these sneak peaks into her thoughts and personal life, although you don't understand half of it. And I did enjoy piecing things together and reading between the lines. (For example, in the years after Little Women gave LMA fame and riches, why did her journal make her seem even more unhappy than before? What was this illness the plagued her for so long? Why was she so extremely devoted to all of her immediate family members?) ( )

Madeleine Stern is listed as "Associate Editor" of this book. She's an Alcott scholar who wrote a biography of LMA that was published in the 1950s and was reissued by Random House in 1996--and it still holds up today. I gave this 5-stars because of the excellent scholarly apparati and the care with which it was edited. Stern has written an excellent explanatory introduction, there are good notes throughout, an appendix, and an index. This is the kind of editing readers and researchers hope for. ( )