Rose in Bloom (Eight Cousins #2)

by Louisa May Alcott

Ebook, ?

Publication

Publisher Unknown, Kindle Edition, 154 pages

Description

Classic Literature. Young Adult Fiction. HTML: Today's readers may instantly associate the name Louisa May Alcott with Little Women, but the Massachusetts-born writer composed a vast number of novels over the course of her career, many of which are just as engaging as the beloved story of the four March sisters. Rose in Bloom is a sequel to an earlier Alcott novel, Eight Cousins; it follows the protagonist Rose as she makes the transition to adulthood and broaches the turbulent waters of courtship and marriage..

User reviews

LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

After spending two years travelling around Europe, Rose, her companion Phoebe and her Uncle Alex come home. Coming out in society, suddenly Rose has many admirers, but feeling unsure as to who really cares for her and who just sees the heiress, she decides that she must make her own way in the

world before she can decide on marriage. Deciding to put her money to good use she turns to charitable works.

Of course her seven male cousins are on hand to escort her and Phoebe to dances, parties and social events, and the various aunts have high hopes that Rose will fall in love with one of these cousins. Charlie, or Prince as he is called appears to be the one who has stolen Rose’s heart. Unfortunately Charlie has a weakness for alcohol and would rather spend his time in play than in any serious undertaking. Another of Rose’s cousins, Mac, waits and watches patiently as he too is in love with her.

Rose In Bloom by Louisa May Alcott is overly sentimental and more than a little preachy. I never fully connected to Rose, as I found she never quite reached the depths that is found in the March girls of Little Women, but this story paints a clear picture of the manners and mores of the times, and what was expected of young people of a certain class. This is a book that totally charmed and captivated me when I was young, but reading it with my jaded eyes today, I mostly found it moralistic and rather dated.

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LibraryThing member mcintoshcollege

A favorite of mine. Rose in Bloom examines society expectations and the "fate" of nineteenth century gentle women in both the upper and working class. The high moral expectations from both family and society, the prejudices, customs and the lack of opportunity for even educated women is evident on

every page. Drawing from personal experience, Louisa creates a bittersweet picture of life in New England in the mid eighteen hundreds.

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LibraryThing member Faun_Song

Does anyone else think that Louisa May Alcott seems to write the most sentimental love scenes ever written? That's one of the only things that I don't like about her books - otherwise, they're good stories.

Rose In Bloom, however, was disappointing. The idea of cousins marrying one another is ....

strange! (To me, at least. ) I guess I was expecting a different ending for Charlie, and the last chapter made me roll my eyes and shake my head. The first book (Eight Couins) is much happier and less serious.

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LibraryThing member countrylife

Sweet Rose is much reviewed; I add my own here simply as a reminder to myself. Rose is still sweet when she returns home at twenty-one after several years abroad with her uncle and friend. All the aunts would like to plant this Rose in their own home gardens and look with fondness on any perceived

attraction between their various sons and their much-loved niece. Rose knows exactly what she is looking for, though, for she’s had an example since childhood from her guardian, Uncle Alec –

”…to me, love isn’t all. I must look up, not down, trust and honor with my whole heart, and find strength and integrity to lean on.”

Ms. Alcott’s characters have grown into their own, much as you’d expect to see them after reading [Eight Cousins]. All in all, I think I prefer the first book over this one. But both are nice examples of didactic fiction from the mid-19th century.

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LibraryThing member Xiguli

Somehow I missed Eight Cousins when I received this as a Christmas gift one year. And I warn you--it's overly sentimental, filled with Pollyanna characters who moralize to an astonishing degree.
But I loved it as a child. And I continue to periodically re-read it to this day, and still love it.

Definitely my favorite of Alcott's novels. Go figure.

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LibraryThing member JenJ.

Previously read - listened to the Recorded Books audio cassette edition. I had much the same reaction to this as I did to Eight Cousins - I know I loved it when I was younger, but parts of it just grated on me now. Alcott's so sincere and the characters all take themselves so seriously that it's

cloying. However, I know I loved it for years so I'm rating it based on that rather than my current assessment.

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LibraryThing member arelenriel

I really loved this book. It was an excellent read. It should also serve as a lesson to teenaged girls that come from wealthier families. The most important things in life cannot be bought and paid for. I would reccomend this book to anyone.

LibraryThing member MerryMary

A slice of life from another era - yes. Hopelessly romantic and idealized - yes. Old fashioned and out of date - yes. I don't care. I love this book, and its prequel Eight Cousins. Rich beautiful Rose must decide how she will spend her life so that it means something. And she must also decide who

she will spend it with. (Or rather, with whom she will spend it!)

Inscribed: "Mary Alice Burns" (my mother)

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LibraryThing member maryanntherese

The sequel to Eight Cousins finds Rose Campbell a grown woman of fortune. Will she find true love?

LibraryThing member francescadefreitas

While I reread this many times as a child, and loved it dearly, a recent reread left me a little cold. Rose's morals seem impossibly high to meet, and while the spirit behind them is still sweet, I now find her annoying and preachy. Only nostalgia stops me from changing my rating from five stars to

three.
I'd only give the first books to a die hard Little Woman fan.

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LibraryThing member rainbowdarling

Generally I am torn by sequels. I both love and hate them because they can often take a good story and mar it by having been written for the sole purpose of serving fans or publishers. This one, however, is as charming as its precursor, Eight Cousins. Rose is grown and is then thrown into the world

of adulthood where love and drama takes over the fancies and imaginings of childhood. It is a thrilling (if sometimes heartbreaking) story and is a very good read.

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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey

Another good story...not quite as good, for me, as Eight Cousins, partly because it is so strongly focused on romance(s). The moral messages are still character-driven, though, and the characters develop well and reasonably. It is again extremely predictable - I haven't read this one nearly as

often as I did Eight Cousins, and didn't remember any of what happened, but who Rose would end up with was pretty obvious from the start. Still a pleasant read.

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LibraryThing member craftylibrarian

The lesser-known sequel to Eight Cousins. It follows Rose as she grows up and deals with some interesting social issues of the day. The ending is perfect for hopeless romantics.

LibraryThing member leslie.98

3.5* for this audiobook edition; 4* for the book itself. Marie Therese did an adequate narration but mispronounced certain words which bothered me a little (for example, "vague" with a short a to sound like bag instead of a long a).

I did enjoy the story despite the moralizing streaks.

LibraryThing member nx74defiant

Rose is just so unrelentingly good. It came across as rather preacher. I wonder how she would deal with Rose and Charlie's relationship. I didn't see how it could end well.

LibraryThing member NinieB

Six years have passed since the end of [Eight Cousins]. Rose, Phebe, and Uncle Alec have been in Europe for the last two, but now they have returned home. Both Rose and Phebe are trying to find their place in the world. Rose's cousins have mostly grown up (Jamie is still a kid); Archie falls in

love with Phebe, and Charlie with Rose. But Charlie encounters problems in his life, and Rose is unwilling to marry him. She does try to help him overcome his difficulties. Meanwhile, Mac is studying medicine under Uncle Alec's tutelage, but also dreaming of greatness in other endeavors. He introduces Rose to Emerson's essays.

While [Eight Cousins] is a children's book, [Rose in Bloom] is more young adult in its themes. While Rose expresses her concerns about marriage to the wrong person in 19th century moralizing fashion, she does have a point.

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LibraryThing member LibraryCin

I don’t really have a summary because I wasn’t really interested/paying attention. It seems Rose (raised with a bunch of boy cousins – I know this from the previous book) was away and has returned. I think she might now be looking for a husband. If she isn’t, others are (Phoebe?), as there

is lots of talk of “lovers”. Oh, I do remember Rose wanted to become a philanthropist.

I listened to the audio, but neither the narrator nor the story made this interesting enough to really listen to what was going on. I rarely paid attention. Oh, and cousins getting married kind of creeps me out.

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LibraryThing member FriendsLibraryFL

Six years before she wrote Little Women, and in financial straits, Louisa May Alcott entered Pauline's Passion and Punishment, a novelette, in a newspaper contest. Not only did it win the $100 prize, but, published anonymously, it marked the first of the series of blood & thunder tales that would

provide her livelihood for years. For as she said, They are easy to 'compoze' & are better paid than moral...works. The gruesome, passionate stories reveal a darker side of Alcott. Published anonymously or under the pseudonym of A. M. Barnard, they appeared in weeklies over a century ago. In their mastery of suspense and psychological drama, and in their embodiment of a startlingly intense - if oblique - feminism, they attest to the multifaceted genius of their creator. Pauline's Passion and Punishment features a woman who is scorned by her lover and left with her fury and her desire for revenge. The male hero of The Mysterious Key must unearth secrets hidden away in a family tomb if he is to realize true love. Mysterious pasts and all-too-present jealousies conflict for some surprising effects on the holiday mood in The Abbot's Ghost. And Behind a Mask tells the chilling story of a woman thwarted by love, whose main motivation becomes her desire to dominate an entire family.

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LibraryThing member leslie.98

3.5* for this audiobook edition. Marie Therese did an adequate narration but mispronounced certain words which bothered me a little (for example, "vague" with a short a to sound like bag instead of a long a).

I did enjoy the story despite the moralizing streaks.

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