In it, the March sisters' children and the original students of Plumfield, now grown, are caught up in real world troubles as they work towards careers and pursue love.
The book explores themes relating to modern ideals regarding gender roles and vocation, as well as progressive reform in education and women's right to vote.
The book describes life at Plumfield, where Jo and Professor Bhaer continue to run an academy ten years after Little Men.
Jo has earned plenty of money and notoriety publishing her stories, but is tired of the constant visits and letters from fans who expect someone different than she is.
A dance is held at Parnassus, the home of Amy and Laurie's family, before Dan goes off to try farming and Professor Bhaer's adopted son Emil goes back to sea.
The Lawrences then take Meg's youngest daughter Josie along on a vacation at the beach, where she discovers her idol Miss Cameron is staying next door.
Back at Plumfield, Tom confides in Mrs. Jo that in his efforts to impress Nan, he "accidentally" proposed to a girl named Dora, but he finds he is happier with her and quits medicine to join his family's business.
He is sentenced to a year in prison with hard labor and avoids telling anyone out of shame, only sending short postcards home.
Nan remains happily single and dedicated to her work and Dan dies defending the Native Americans he lives among.
The book's narration generally minimizes marriage, not as a negative event, but as a side story to the characters exploring careers and retaining independence.
[4] Although Alcott is more critical about progressive education and modern literature in other works such as A Garland for Girls,[5] Plumfield represents her idea of utopia as a school, home, and charity.
[6] The nearby Laurence College is described as a coeducational school with progressive politics and "new ideas of education", allowing students of any sex and color.
[8] Critics disagree on whether Plumfield is a "feminist utopia" or whether Alcott is more focused on addressing social constraints placed on women of the time.
[9] Women's expanding rights to work, receive an education, and live independent of a husband or family show up in the paths of the different female characters in the novel.
[10] Jo also shares her conviction that women diagnosed with "nervous exhaustion" or a "delicate constitution" can be cured by studying and putting their mind to work.
[11] The feminism in the novel is contrasted with the plays put on by Jo and Laurie at Plumfield in which motherhood is the focus and interests diverging from domestic ideals are discouraged.
Additionally, Jo's achievement of her childhood dreams of money and fame contrasts with her settling as the matron of Plumfield and its students.
[13] Alcott also develops the importance of the mother's moral guidance on their sons, emphasizing that only women can balance men's impulses.
Analyzing "modernity" in Jo's Boys, Gregory Eiselein writes that these allusions serve to emphasize the present rather than romanticize the past.
Bacchus becomes the subject of a lecture on temperance and Minerva holds a shield for "Woman's Rights" and advertises the duty of women to "vote early and often".
New York Tribune suggested Alcott succeeded in teaching through her story, but that "the women's hand shows ... in the priggishness and sentimentality of some of the 'Boys'".
A later edition with illustrations by Louis Jambor was released in 1949, but this time the art was called "luminous", "lively", and "strong in human interest".