I listened to this book as it audiobook:
It was an emotional roller coaster.
What I liked:
✅It was fast paced.
✅She was a feminist, but not in an annoying way.
What I didn’t like:
❌some of the social norms back then.
❌it was very traumatic.

Favorite quote: “Few men appear and the women seem to be doing all the business which perhaps accounts for its being so well done. “

Ok this review is a joke so bye.

Reminiscences of Alcott’s brief term of service as a Civil War nurse. You can definitely see the foundations of Alcott’s authorial persona being shaped here. In all honesty, I enjoy the hints of vinegar and affectionate self-mockery in this book more than the sometimes-tiresome moralizing tone of Alcott’s more-famous children’s books. Alcott frames her recollections of nursing via the persona of a “Miss Tribulation Periwinkle”—a pseudonym that signals how willing Alcott is to make fun of the more ridiculous and bureaucratic elements of her stint as a nurse, as well as her own human foibles and follies in negotiating said bureaucracy. Amidst the comedic moments, Alcott tells stories of suffering, of injury, and death. Her depiction of the wounds and eventual death of Virginia blacksmith John is probably the most touching such passage in the book.

Be warned, though: this is a book of its era, and Alcott’s descriptions of African-Americans—although they are probably much kinder than many of her peers’—are incredibly retrograde to a modern reader’s eyes.

Full review at: https://anotherchange.net/2019/01/20/hospital-sketches-by-louisa-may-alcott/

Useful bits of insight about Civil War hospitals and wartime Washington, but an absolute slog despite being a short book.

Please excuse my punctuation; my comma key no longer works! It takes the right person in this day and age to appreciate what Louisa May Alcott can/could do. That is she can say in 30 words what it would take us 4 or 5 words to say today! lol But what she says is vivid comical and moving. She is/was able to take a common boring everyday event and make it humorous! She is not in the slightest averse to poking at herself either.

I particularly loved her account of John the Virginian blacksmith's heroic death. It was incredibly moving and inspirational. I also appreciated the few paragraphs she wrote in defense of her "colored brothers and sisters". Living in 1863 I think she (and her family) was fairly progressive for her time. I think I need to include some of her best known writings as re-reads on my list this year.

Since Louisa May Alcott could not fight for the slaves, she did the next best thing - became a nurse. Hospital Sketches is the fictionalized narrative of her time as a nurse during the Civil War. The stories of the men and boys who came through the hospital are told by Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle.