Book Blurb:
Our Little World by Karen Winn: 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.
My Review: 4 stars
Our Little World by Karen Winn was an utterly compelling work of fiction that took on sisterhood, loss, fitting in, tragedy, coming of age, marriage, small town life, and parenting. All these topics were woven into a meaningful story that felt realistic.
I loved that it took place in the 80s, before cell phones, the internet and when times seemed simpler. Winn made this small town in New Jersey come alive with her vivid descriptions. The two sisters in the book were a duo I’ll long remember. Borka (Bee), a year older than her sister Audrina, were completely different. While Borka excels in school, with very few friends, Audrina was a natural beauty and attracted friends like magnets. There was tension between the two that deepened after a tragedy occurs in their neighborhood.
The mystery surrounding the tragedy kept the reader invested as other complicated relationships ensued. Some were surprising and some were expected, but all were well crafted and worked into the storyline seamlessly. The secrets kept in this story were wrenching, especially when held by the kids. Not just Bee and Audrina, but also the neighborhood kids.
I was caught off guard when a character was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. I’ve lived with disease for 36 years, so I usually prepare myself to be disappointed in how it’s portrayed. Thankfully, Winn did a darn good job. Had she not, as much as I liked this book, I would’ve bailed.
I highly recommend this book to readers of all types. It felt raw and real.
Quotes I liked:
Can secrets still be secret when you tell one more person?”
“Popularity is such a funny thing, I thought. You want it until you have it – at which point if feels imperfect- and then when you lose it, it feels worse than if you’d ever had it at all.”
“Over the years, I repeated the foreign saying to myself so often that it stayed with me. I still think about what it means, about beauty having two sides. Or maybe it’s just one side: the façade you show the world, and what’s really lying beneath.”
“She was a presence and a memory, with me and in me. She was familiar and natural – a sister. But she was not the Audrina I had known; she was changed, reduced – a whisper.”
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