Liked the second half way more than the first half (a little too preachy) but whyyyyy did she end up with Tom when Arthur Sydney was right there?

Having first read Little Women, I thought this book was marginally just under in terms of writing. The ending was sappy, but the characters matured and the plot developed nicely. It was a bit preachy and I wouldn't be surprised if Polly was Pollyanna underneath. I loved the underlying messages of finding happiness despite harsh circumstances and how money can't buy true friendship. Although, I found Polly's self-righteousness irritating at times. But her modesty and good-heart was inspiring.

this was a very inspiration novel to a much younger me. I was always an Old-Fashioned Girl and I related to so many of the trials Polly experienced. I found myself wishing there was a sequel when it ended.

Polly Milton is a 14-year-old girl that grew up in the country and was raised on old-fashioned values and is invited to the city to stay with her friend Fanny Shaw. She is quite unwary of all that she would behold during her stay in the glamorous city. Although Fanny is merely 2 years older than our little Polly, she is no longer a child - she is a young lady, acting, dressing, and doing the things that the fashionable young women of the city did. Polly struggles with temptation to fit in and to yield to peer pressure, and although she falls into it for a tiny amount of time, she forsakes it in the end, delighting to be called an old-fashioned girl.
In this book, just as in Little Women, Louisa May Alcott skips forward a few years for the end of the book and observes the lives of these two young ladies and the state of their families (at least in Fanny's case). It's interesting to observe how Fanny Shaw, a rose that bloomed too early, has begun to waste away and wither, while Polly, who had taken her time to bloom, had blossomed into a beautiful, gentle, delicate rose in her prime at exactly the right time.

This book has become one of my all-time favorites and I would highly recommend it.

I tried my best to tolerate Polly but I just couldn’t but hate her from the beginning.

Hmmm. This was a tricky one. My ten year old DESPERATELY wanted me to read this book to her. And I have to be honest, we'd stop and talk about so many pieces of this book and there were times that I was not sure what the characters were talking about! Such old English even for me. But we got the overall drift and we both really liked it. We remarked that even though it was written so long ago, the actual story was no different than many stories written currently. And we both loved Polly. What a character. She was refreshing in her view that to make others happy and to help others is really what life is all about!