Our Little World was a coming of age story set in the 80s told from Bee’a perspective, a child still figuring out her place in the world and how she fit in.
Sally, the 4 year old neighbor across the street, went missing at the lake and shattered Bee’s small town.
I loved the mystery, the way the town changed and the way Sally’s disappearance impacted everyone.. what rumors the kids would talk about and how it gave Bee some popularity as she was Sally’s neighbor.
The story dealt a lot with sisters, families, secrets, and identity.
I ultimately enjoyed the ending and the way it wrapped up, but I did think the pacing was a bit off. The middle dragged a bit.
Still, this was a great story and I’d definitely read more by the author in the future!

Absolutely awesome book! Coming of age in the 80s, Bee feels like the ugly duckling compared to younger sister Audrina. Their sibling conversations were so real and genuine….one minute best friends and enemies the next.

Bee’s interactions with her parents, neighbor/crush Max, her school friends all rang true.

The storyline about Sally missing was intriguing and kept me interested from the very beginning.

The ending was perfect! This is one of the best books I’ve read in awhile. Highly recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

Wow, wow, wow!!! Karen Winn knocks it out of the park with her debut novel Our Little World. I didn't know until the end of the book that this is her first novel - and still find it hard to wrap my mind around that.

Engaging from the very first paragraph, this novel, set in a small New Jersey town in the '80s, features sisters, Bee, 12, and Audrina, 11, their neighborhood, and town. A heartbreaking and poignant coming of age/murder mystery, Winn strikes all the right notes with her well-developed, complex characters and her ability to make readers feel part of the narrative. Even supporting characters are richly written.

I highly recommend this enthralling true-to-life read and suggest you add it to your TBR titles now. I have added this author to my "authors to watch for" list and am already looking forward to her next book!

My thanks to Penguin Group/Dutton for allowing me to read an e-ARC via NetGalley. The book is scheduled for publication on May 3, 2022. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

Our Little World is a well-written, dark, coming-of-age story about Bee and Audrina, just a year younger. Audrina is the golden child, the one that can do no wrong, while Bee is the one left in the shadows. They were always close, but things change when their next-door neighbor, Sally, goes missing one day while they’re swimming at the lake. As the years progress, the sisters grow distant and words are said that can never be forgotten.
The story takes place in 1985, a time when kids didn’t grow up as fast. When the news wasn’t filled with tragic stories of kids getting killed, and it was a good representation of what white, middle-class suburbia looked like in the 1980s.
Told from Bee's POV, the author captures the world as seen through the eyes of a young girl - hearing only snippets of adult conversations, not fully comprehending what’s going on.
This is an amazing debut. Well written, and it kept me engaged throughout.

I enjoyed this story. This is my first book by this author and I can't wait to see what is next for this author. One of the things I enjoyed about this story is how the author brought the story to life by her writing skills and attention to details to make the story realistic. I enjoyed how she was able to pull me in from the start and really bring the story to life. This is a well written story about a missing sister that shatters lives. A story about family bonds and how trama really does effect who you are. I enjoyed how the characters are connectable. Their growth is great throughout the story and made the story easy to read. This is a fast paced story that was hard to put down. The twists and turns are lik no other and kept me coming back for more. You don't want to miss what happens in this story. I highly recommend this book.

Even though this is a coming-of-age book, I loved the mystery lingering around the disappearance of Sally Baker, who alongside her parents and older brother Max just moved to this new town. But then I fell in love with these sisters who are the main characters in this book Bee and Audrina. Bee is different from her sister, Audrina has it all, she is charismatic, and everyone loves her, and she is considered the “pretty sister.” Bee is also considered the “toy boy” even though she is not, lol. Anyway, the Bakers come into town and the sisters finally have some new friends in a sense, but their whole world shakes up when Sally goes missing, and then everything goes downhill from there when it comes to everyone in town, even Bee and her family. This book dragged at some points, I wanted to know the mystery of the missing girl, the family issues and the sister relationships, but I felt that towards the end everything came out and it felt so rushed, I wish it wasn’t like that, the ending of the book was so heartfelt.

Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have conflicting feelings on this one - a coming of age story set mid-80s with a mystery in the background. I liked the mystery piece and the family dynamics/sister relationship, but I felt the rest of the family could have been explored a little more. The mystery surrounding Sally's disappearance is really background noise - a setting to introduce the main character's complex teenage emotions and the backdrop to events that happen later. The mystery is (thankfully) resolved at the end of the book, but this book is *not* a mystery, so if that's what you're looking for, you'll be disappointed. The middle of the book is a little bit of a slog with much discussion of Bee's teenage feelings. I found myself rolling my eyes at her several times in the book, but remember she is 12/13; she definitely makes some questionable choices.

Overall, a nice debut novel. The writing itself was great, but the book could have been slimmed down a little bit (or more characters fleshed out instead of so much focus on Bee), but it was a charming story full of nostalgia for days gone by.

Our Little World hooks the reader in immediately with the foreshadowing of two deaths. It is the story of two sisters, their rollercoaster relationship, and the tight community around them.

The narrator is Borka, a perceptive and naïve preteen struggling to find her place in the family. The novel traces the Kocsis family, their neighbors, the Bakers, school friends, and police officers through the eyes of young Borka or Bee (her nickname). The novel follows the sisters’ rivalry, Bee’s first crush, her sister’s illness, and the disappearance of Little Sally. Through the trials and triumphs, Our Little World follows Borka and her family over thirty years, culminating in the discovery of Sally’s killer.

With a shocking yet poetic ending, Our Little World wraps up on a profound note. And the heart-warming diary entry shows the closeness and tenderness of a sister’s love and regrets. The characters are well-developed and age-appropriate as Winn captures the voice of the preteen and older Borka. Our Little World is a perfect title for this brilliant coming-of-age story, cast in a small town in New Jersey during the 80s. I thank NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Our Little World. #NetGalley #OurLittleWorld, #yafiction, #familysaga

Ultimately this was a fine story, but it read a little long and ambling for me personally.

I think the problem for me was the book kicks off with Sally's abduction, (which thankfully is resolved by the book's end) but that event quickly fades into the background in favor of preteen angst and sister fights.

I get it, I was a pre-teen girl, and raised one too, that age is full of confused feelings, changing bodies and self-absorption. Bee was very much an authentic, fully-realized, realistic character, but that also made her a less than desirable narrator at times.

It's hard with a child missing and possibly murdered in the background of the story (and the looming death of the sister forecast in the opening of the book) to get wrapped up in her stories about spin the bottle and first crushes. I suppose this "innocence in the backdrop of evil," will work for some, but I found it a little distracting.

And I have to wonder who is the audience for the book. I'm guessing it's women like myself who also came of age in the 80s. (Because the book didn't read as YA to me.) If so, the narrative choices felt strange for me, giving me ample moments of nostalgia, but also annoyance because the adult in me wanted to dive deeper into mature matters while the story stayed rooted in pre-teen ones.

At face value though, this is a solid book that will likely speak to those who have a close relationship with their sister. The characters were compelling and believable. I think perhaps if Sally's murder wasn't a subplot, I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful debut coming-of-age novel. You will immediately be sucked into the mid-80s atmosphere (it was super easy for me - I'm the same age as the narrator, Bee). Our Little World is the story of two sisters, Bee and Audrina, and the love/hate relationship between them, that is magnified by tragic events. Bee is a fully realized 12 and 13 year old in this book - if you don't know what it feels like to be a young teen girl, and the internal struggles they feel, you will when you are finished with the book. It's also a look at envy, and how childhood traumas inform our entire lives.

"July 1985. It’s a normal, sweltering New Jersey summer for soon-to-be seventh grader Bee Kocsis. Her thoughts center only on sunny days spent at Deer Chase Lake, evenings chasing fireflies around her cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids, and Max, the boy who just moved in across the street. That and the burgeoning worry that she’ll never be as special as her younger sister, Audrina, who seems to effortlessly dazzle wherever she goes.

But when Max’s little sister, Sally, goes missing at the lake, Bee’s long-held illusion of stability is shattered in an instant. As the families in her close-knit community turn inward, suspicious, and protective, things in Bee’s own home become increasingly strained, most of all with Audrina, when a shameful secret surfaces. With everything changed, Bee and Audrina’s already-fraught sisterhood is pushed to the limit as they grow up—and apart—in the wake of an innocence lost too soon."

Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Stunning debut novel about sibling rivalry, an intact dysfunctional family, dead children, and feelings of guilty responsibility that feel true to those who have them but not to more objective outsiders. A very different look at sibling relationships and discord as they move from childhood into puberty. Tomboy versus girly girl, each poking the other where it hurts the most, each feeling unloved and yet wishing deeply for the love of the other. Parents whose private pain drives infidelity which distances them from each other and from their children, yet who keep the family whole striving painfully to portray normality. In many ways this is both a horror story focused on the disappearance and murder of a young friend and neighbor and death due to an illness of a sibling/child whose troubling difficulties are overlooked by a family preoccupied with their own problems. Moving and thoughtful. There by the grace of circumstance go any one of us. A beautifully constructed plot with fully realized three dimensional characters.

A thoughtful and nuanced look at sisterhood, the "little world" of small-town life as seen through a child's eyes, the impact of tragedy, and the ways our choices haunt us, linking one event to the next, even when we're desperate to go back and make new decisions. The book is full of 1980s nostalgia: Cabbage Patch Kids and Strawberry Shortcake dolls, Walkmans, and countless other brands that readers in their 40s and above will find familiar. More notably, the nostalgia is for a time when children played on lakeside beaches and in cul-de-sacs without the kinds of parental supervision that have become standard in modern day. A time in both one particular life and in the lives of many, when a constant wariness might not have seemed so essential. Though of course, tragedy strikes. And not just once. Through the eyes of her heroine, Winn depicts a loss of innocence and freedom that's forever impacted by unfolding events, and by her heroine's responses to those events.

The story never preaches to pay more attention or to pretend anyone can do everything "right" or stave off all the ills of the world, but it ever-so-quietly suggests we be kind and open-hearted with those we love, because tomorrow is unknown. The mystery of the missing girl mentioned in the synopsis threads throughout the book, but those looking for a tight, suspenseful genre whodunit might be a bit at odds with the quieter, more meditative prose. The story is, instead, a beautifully written account of a complex pair of sisters who love and lash out in equal measure, haunted by the secrets they keep from one another, the jealousies they battle, the little lies that compound, all while forever tethered by a profound mutual love. And now, I'll go call my sister . . .

I am feeling a little lucky here, finding a new author that I am really liking! Karen Winn's debut novel Our Little World is a tale of two sisters and their life growing up in a small New Jersey city. Winn takes up back to the 1980's when life was way more simple. A new family moves in across the street and life will never be the same for Bee and Drina. A simple afternoon at the local lake turns into the worst nightmare for everyone in the town. Little Sally, Bee and Drina's neighbor, disappears from the lake where everyone was enjoying the summer afternoon. As the story progresses, Bee realizes life isn't as easy as it is when you are young. Bee learn her parents aren't exactly the perfect parents she thought, her sister gets sick, and her friends aren't who she thought they were.
Karen Winn tells her story from Bee's point of view. The chapters flow and the writing is easy to follow. I will eagerly be awaiting any new work by Winn and will definitely be recommending Our Little World to my other book reading friends. Special thanks to NetGalley, Karen Winn, and PENGUIN GROUP-Dutton Publishing for the advance digital copy in exchange for my honest opinion. 5stars for me!
#OurLittleWorld #NetGalley.

An intriguing and exciting book from the start. Told from Bee's point of view of a little girl Sally gone missing when she was just a little girl. I loved the references of the 80's and 90's. It brought back so many memories. It was spot on. The author did an amazing job with each character and how it would feel if your own child went missing. The twist at the end of "who did it was a surprise. Bee also describes losing her sister at a young age. I enjoyed the book, it was well written.

In their little world, in their little neighborhood, families must deal with love, lost and lust. Just what everyone else must deal with.

God this was good. A slow burn done right. It made me feel tragically nostalgic. I loved this book. I highly recommend it.

This one is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed the way the author dug into the main character's childhood; it was like a little time travel back to my own childhood. It was about coming of age, and first crushes, being awkward but at the same time trying to be cool. Such a great perspective on growing up and the trials and tribulations of a young girl, with some tragedy and drama, because childhood isn't dramatic enough. What missed the mark for me was that the focus was mostly on one character - Bee. I would have really liked to see the same attention spent on developing Audrina and Max as well, so that we also understood their perspectives and how the events of that one summer shaped them as they grew up. So much potential there, but it never materialized. What we got was good, really good. But it could have been so much more for me. Because of that, it was really just a 3-star, maybe 3.5 star, book for me.

🏡Our Little World: Review🏡
Genre: Family Drama/Coming of Age
Pub date: May 3, 2022
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars

About halfway through, I really considered putting this one down and coming back to it later. I’m so glad I stuck it out!
There were so many elements of this debut novel that I liked:
🔵I really connected with the narrator and main character, Bee. She is as emotionally complex as middle/high schoolers can get and middle school Chelsea related with her a lot! There were also times I was so frustrated with her! Again, emotionally complex.
🔵I absolutely loved the references to 80s and 90s toys and pastimes from my childhood. Big nostalgia.
🔵There is very brief dual timeline happening in the back half of the book. I would have liked to see more of this format throughout!
🔵Winn’s writing is absolutely beautiful. She writes in a very airy, poetic, deep way and it appropriately matched some of the heavy topics she addresses in this novel.

Some critique:
🔵The middle was REALLY slow. Lots of details that felt unnecessary to the storyline and like extra filler that didn’t add to the storyline.

Overall, a very strong debut novel by Karen Winn. I’ll definitely give some of her other writing a try in the future! BIG thank you to Dutton for the opportunity to read this advanced copy before the release on May 3rd!
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This was a slow burn of a book….about a girl’s disappearance the summer of 1985 & it’s aftermath, but mostly about sisterhood. I loved the time frame it was set in as I was only a little older than Bee, the 12 year old narrator, was at the time. It was beautifully & intricately written, with all the longing & angst of adolescence…. It could have been a little shorter, but overall a heartbreaking & evocative read.

<b>3.75 Stars</b>

As the sister of a sister, I know just exactly how complicated sister relationships can be. I mean, of course all relationships can be complicated...but I definitely think the sister to sister relationship can be...an even more complex form of "complicated." And I thought this book did a really great job of capturing that.

Also, as a child of the 1980's, I really enjoyed the added nostalgia of, not only reading about a set of sisters, but coming-of-age sisters growing up at almost the same time I did (although I was closer to Sally in age than to Bee or Audrina).

The book is somewhat slow-moving, which fit the tone of the book and which I enjoyed. The writing, while not flawless in my opinion, was very good - especially for a debut author. In fact, I can only see this author's books getting better and better. I look forward to picking up more from Winn in the future.

If you are looking for a fast-paced thriller, this is definitely not that. But if you are looking for a slow-moving character piece about complex childhood sisterhood, interspersed with a missing child case and other events, this is for you.

***ARC received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review***