I am in the process of re-reading, and the same thing is bothering me as was the first time. I love everything about the book--it feels like it was literally written for me--but there is one thing I can't get past. I have trouble believing that Jo can actually be that naive. 
 She is an unusually worldly girl for her time; the author stresses how extraordinarily un-ignorant she is. She keeps muckrakers' books under her bed, sneaks out of school to interview mill workers, but still has no idea about the gritty parts of her city (even though her far more proper friends know everything about it), and she is so quick to trust. I don't understand how fanciful, imaginative Jo can be so unknowing, especially about the journalistic process. She's obviously done deep research. 
 But I forgive it. Still 5 stars, although Jo's dubious naivety is the only thing holding this novel back from being completely believable, melding the fiction with the reality, and sucking the reader into the story.