BETH IS DEAD BY KATIE BERNET

 

I haven’t updated my blog in so long - I’ve been in a little of a reading slump and very much in a writing slump. But I’ve read a few really good books lately and I want to talk about them! The first one is Beth Is Dead by Katie Bernet. The title and the cover drew my attention right away - of course I love the pink cover! The book is based on the classic novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. My mother was a librarian and she really wanted me to read Little Women when I was young, but I wouldn’t. I didn’t like sad books (I still don’t) and as soon as I heard that one of the sisters, Beth, dies at the end I refused to read it.

In Little Women Beth dies from an illness, but in this modern retelling she is murdered. I love mystery/thrillers and I also love retellings, so I figured this would be the perfect book for me. And it was! The story grabbed my attention right from the start. It’s told in alternating chapters by the four March sisters: Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy. Their father is famous for writing a bestselling novel based on the girls’ lives, which has not only caused a lot of friction between the girls and their father but has also started to drive the sisters apart from each other. The book opens on New Year’s morning when Jo finds Beth dead in the woods by their house. The chapters go back and forth between the present and the previous summer, when the father’s book was published, and between the sisters’ perspectives. We even get to see Beth’s viewpoint in the “Before” chapters.

I really liked this book a lot. I was hooked by the mystery right away and I thought the author did a great job of drawing it out while also nicely developing the relationships between the sisters. You definitely don’t need to have read Little Women to enjoy this book, but I liked this book so much that I might give that one a try!