Small World is an homage to the special relationship between sisters, many of the good things and many of the bad things about these unique relationships. When Lydia, living in California, gets divorced, she moves cross-country to temporarily live with her divorced sister Joyce. Things are going fine until new, noisy neighbors move in upstairs. The new situation has a negative effect on an already somewhat fragile relationship. Secrets and hurt feelings from the past are brought into the story. Laura Zigman is a beautiful writer really captures the very best and the very worst aspects being sisters. At times poignant, at times laugh-put-loud funny, at times heartbreakingly sad, Small World is a wonderful read.

This story felt very real - family members unable to communicate and the trouble it causes. My mom grew up in a similar environment to these sisters so I appreciated the exploration of the results.

In her new novel, Laura Zigman created Joyce and Lydia, sisters who, in their forties, are divorced. Joyce lives in Cambridge, and Lydia has been in LA for many years. The plot develops when Lydia announces that she is moving back east and will stay with Joyce temporarily. Lydia is direct to the point of harsh rudeness. Lydia has always been the one to apologize for her lack of social skills. Living together after so many years apart creates multiple challenges for Joyce, who was getting used to single life one year after her divorce.

Lydia settles in like she owns the place. Joyce, an archivist of family legacies, works from home. The sisters often go whole days without seeing or speaking with each other. Sometimes they enjoy walks in familiar neighborhoods and meals in their favorite places. They settle into a reasonably peaceful co-existence until new neighbors upstairs disrupt any harmony achieved after a few months. The new neighbors and events beyond Joyce's control open up the vault of memories from the girls' childhood.

POV chunks of stories provide family memories of Eleanor, the middle sister. Eleanor lived with cerebral palsy, and their mother, Louise, devoted her life to caring and advocating for Eleanor and other developmentally challenged children. Joyce and Lydia's memories reveal a history of deep feelings. This lovely novel helps explain the sisters' approach to each other and the world. It is a heartbreaking and hopeful message about dealing with the past to create a better present.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

Sibling relationships are tricky, particular that between sisters. This book does a great job at balancing reflection on familial norms and the present and how both impact our futures. Put divorce on top and you’ve got a novel that tackles family bonds in simple and messy times. What do we owe our siblings and original family unit is the core question centering this read. Well worth the read

Joyce and Lydia are newly divorced sisters who move in together. After thirty years living apart, they begin to confront their undigested grief from losing their sister when they were children. Eleanor was ten when she died at a home for developmentally delayed children. Their parents marriage was dissolved by grief and they never spoke of the tragic loss.

As adults, the two sisters are both working through their trauma via creative avenues. The novel speaks to the indelible impression that grief leaves, and the path to forgiveness: of oneself and one's family.

The main characters are Joyce and Lydia Mellishman, both middle aged, both recently divorced. Lydia , four years older, has decided to return to the east coast after 30 years in California and moves into Joyce’s apartment. Different people, totally different personalities, their cohabitation is certainly quirky, at times funny, at times distant, and at most times fraught with tension. The arrival of new neighbors in the apartment upstairs and how differently they react to them reinforces their different personalities but ultimately provides the catalyst to understanding and coming to terms with the people they are and have become.
The core of the novel at least in my mind, is the flashbacks to their lives as children and their upbringing. A third middle sister Eleanor is born with cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder and it is she who receives the majority of attention from their mother Louise, at the expense and frank neglect of the other sisters. Louis becomes a crusader for rights of the disabled, and the life of the family is entirely centered around Eleanor, even when, at age nine, she has to be placed in an institution for the severely disabled and succumbs to the flu a year later. Obviously their childhood reflects who they have become as adults. There are several other“ sub-plots”, intricate to the book, but you will have to read it to discover them 😂😂.
This will be a book club selection for many reasons but one most compelling one will be how a disabled child can affect family dynamics, with ramifications years later. One line stands out in my mind. Returning from a holiday celebration at the family who also has a disabled child, Joyce verbalizes what is missing in their Mellishman home….. joy. At times a very very painful book to read, but read it you must

SMALL WORLD by Laura Zigman is a heart-wrenching and touching story of family, grief and hope that will stay on my mind for a long time to come. A year after getting divorced, Joyce is settled in her new life. She has a cozy apartment in Cambridge and a job she enjoys. Joyce’s sister, Lydia, has just returned to Boston from Los Angeles where she has lived for the past thirty years. Now also divorced, Lydia accepts Joyce’s offer to move in with her until she finds somewhere to live. As they spend time together for the first time, they carefully avoid discussing their upbringing and what drove Lydia to California in the first place. Growing up, they were essentially left on their own by parents, Louise and Lenny, who were preoccupied with the care of their sister, Eleanor, who was severely disabled with cerebral palsy. Even after Eleanor dies at an early age, their parents remain obsessed with crusading for disability rights, that is until Lenny abandons their family. Their poignant exploration of the past is at times sad, at times humorous. I loved the poems that Joyce creates from the posts on the neighborhood chat site. The quirky upstairs neighbors add another fun dimension to the story. I enjoyed this thought-provoking and moving story and highly recommend it. Thank you to the author, publisher, Library Love Fest team and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy.

Absolutely adored this novel about sisters who had a traumatic upbringing trying to forge a relationship as adults and the only remaining family to each other. The writing here is spectacular. The author uses second person for flashbacks in a masterful way. And, the prose poems that one of the characters makes from small world posts (neighborhood online chat board… think Next Door) is genius. So heartfelt and lovely.

This novel is a jewel. I simply fell in love with the characters, two sisters, their shared history and how they come together in the present day. While the author tackles some emotionally fraught subjects, she skillfully manages to weave in just the right amount of humor and present two eccentric women who will have you laughing out loud alongside them, wanting to hug them, and wish nothing but the best for them.

Joyce and Lydia haven’t lived together since they were young girls, now both recently divorced and middle-aged, they are sharing Joyce’s apartment on the east coast, attempting to navigate their new world. While avoiding their childhood feelings of neglect by their mother whose attention it seemed was mostly given to their disabled sister, their never close bond is further strained by a noisy upstairs neighbor. Joyce attempts to keep herself occupied with her archivist job and soothes her anxiety by perusing other people’s woes on a neighborhood site.

This quiet novel is a perfect blend of delicious humor, touching emotion, shared grief, and the bond that only sisters can share. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. So grateful to Laura Zigman for yet another gorgeous book!

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Ecco and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

A glimpse at love, family and all that’s entangled.

This novel is a funny, sad, and realistic look at family dynamics. Sisters Lydia and Joyce have recently become roommates while both going through divorces. While living together, they revisit their childhood with their disabled sister, Eleanor, their mother's devotion to her, and the complicated relationship they had with their mother.

I had never read a Laura Zigman book, but it was funny, interesting, and the characters are well-developed. The only issues are I feel like it could have been a bit shorter (it felt like a lot of the same in the middle), and the shift to second-person during the scenes of reflection was a little jarring--though I understand it was a literary choice to guide the reader.

Definitely recommend a read.

Thank you to Ecco and Netgalley for the ARC.

This review is for Small World by Laura Zigman.
I like books that are written by women, about women..
The premise is that 2 sisters live together after their respective divorces, they slowly start to process their
childhood and present day lives. I enjoyed the deep dive into issues without the sense of being beat over the head with psycho-babble. I liked the characters. This book was deep without being to heavy or depressing. I think it would make a great book club book.
I have read several of the authors books, but, this one stands out to me as being really grounded and rings
true, the author adds a note at the end that she brings her own experience to the book..
Thank you Netgalley for providing the ARC.

I knew this would be good because it is a Laura Zigman book and she writes nothing but books I like to read. Utterly fantastic characters, even if you don’t get warm and fuzzy over them. The story is not one I have ever been immersed in before- the impact on two siblings of a sister who was disabled and seemingly received more love from their parents. The characters are so real. The problems are unique to their situation but make perfect sense to the reader. A great ending as well.
Thank you Netgalley for a ARC.

This was my first time reading a book by Laura Zigman.
Small World is humourous however it is also pretty raw.
This brilliant author focuses on real life issues.
A solid read for me.

Small World by Laura Zigman has fun, unique, quirky and very relatable characters.
It's a touching look into marriage, divorce, age, relationships, death and the magic of
sisterhood.
Honestly, Small World taught me a thing a or two.
You can overcome those rough hard times no matter how hard times may be.
And in order to move on in the future you have to take a deep hard look at your past.
I felt this was a very relatable book. And I truly appreciated the deep subject talk.
Zigman's writing flowed off the pages and right into my heart.
This will make for an awesome book club pick.
I enjoyed following Joyce and Lydia's journey. As they navigate adulthood together.
A funny, heartfelt and very relatable. It is a book about loss and hope and love.
So much fun but also has a serious side.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Ecco,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my blog, platforms, BookBub, B&N, Kobo and Waterstone closer to pub date.

This novel is a heartfelt story of two adult sisters, newly divorced, who end up living together. They were not especially close as children, and struggle to find their way with each other as adults. At the heart of the story is a third sister, who was severely disabled, who (through no choice of her own) divides the family and (at least in the eyes of the other two sisters) commands all of their mother's attention and consumes all of her goodness. This is complicated real-life adult stuff here. Lots of wounds of the past, misplaced blame, and guarded secrets. This is well written with finely drawn characters. Recommended to those who enjoy family dramas. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for provided a digital ARC for review.

Laura Zigman's previous book, "Separation Anxiety" was amazing, so I was excited to read and review "Small World." Zigman is an author with great insight and depth in her writing whose prose can be laugh-out-loud funny. This newest book more than met my expectations although its subject matter is darker than her previous work. Highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco/HarperCollins for the eARC of this wonderful book.

At the center of Small World is the relationship between two sisters, Joyce and Lydia, both recently divorced in middle age, living together for the first time in decades in Joyce’s apartment in Boston. The sisters have a sad and complicated family history. Their parents, Lenny and Louise, are both deceased, and they had a sister with cerebral palsy, Eleanor, who died in childhood. When Joyce and Lydia were young, Louise gave the vast majority of her attention to Eleanor and, after Eleanor’s tragic death, to crusading for disability rights; Lenny later abandoned his family.

This is some heavy subject matter, but the story through which it is told—two sisters with very different personalities learning to live as roommates, Odd Couple style, and their relationship with some unusual characters who move in to the apartment upstairs from them—is touching and often hilarious. Lydia is a delightfully quirky character, contrasted with the more serious, emotional, prone-to-tears Joyce.

In addition to the present-day story of the sisters’ relationship as adults, the book contains a series of flashbacks—some happy, some less so—to their childhood growing up with Eleanor. The flashbacks are told in second-person point of view, contrasted with the rest of the book, which is in first person from Joyce’s point of view. I am a huge fan of experimental uses of points of view, especially when it works well, as it does here. The narrative is also punctuated by the poems Joyce, once an aspiring writer, adapts from neighborhood posts on “Small World,” a Nextdoor-like site.

The prose sparkles throughout; this was another fast read for me.

I understand from reading the acknowledgements that the author also had a chronically ill sister who passed away very young. Even without that knowledge, I could detect her strong emotional connection to the sisters’ story on every page. This was a great, touching read, and I highly recommend it.

Laura Zigman is a master of drawing unique, quirky characters, and I am always excited to learn she has a new novel out. This story unfolds around the life of two adult sisters who they find themselves living together after each is divorced. This provides them with the unexpected opportunity to observe and reflect upon the ways in which their parents left them to fend for themselves growing up, because then parents -particularly their mother -were preoccupied with caring for another child, their sister, who had cerebral palsy. I won’t spoil the details, but suffice to say each of these characters is memorable in ways I’ve never seen drawn before, and while this is not exactly a happy story, it is a satisfying and good one.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book.

This novel explores the lives of 4 women, 2 survivors and 2 who have passed away. The catalyst of the story is Eleanor, born with Cerebral Palsy, leaving her in an extremely disabled state. She is cared for with slavish devotion by her mother, Louise, until her early death in the Frenauld Home for the severely disabled. The survivors are Joyce and Lydia, who grew up in the wreckage generated by sister Eleanor’s disability and early death.

When both sisters, now middle aged women, go through divorces, they come together to reclaim their lives and their memories. Of course, there are twists and turns in the novel, as secrets are revealed and relationships rebuilt.

I enjoyed this sensitive portrayal of a family, essentially handicapped by the chronic, serious illness of a sibling. This book presents infinite opportunities for book clubs to explore. I recommend it to groups interested in discussing topics such as sibling relationships and the impact of serious illness on the life of a family.

Thank you Netgalley for this interesting, thought provoking ARC.