Take a photo of a barcode or cover
nancyadair 's review for:
Perfect Little World
by Kevin Wilson
After I finished Perfect Little World I admit I was not quite sure what to make of it. Early on I enjoyed the humor. Midway the book dragged and the ending was predictable.
The characters are quirky and damaged and although readers get to know quite a bit about them they never really felt 'real' to me and the idea of a community of parents and babies gathered for a ten-year study on childraising was bizarre.
The main character has pluck and has forged a way to survive in the midst of neglect and tragedy. Izzy's mentally ill mother's death caused her father to withdraw into an alcoholic depression. She finds a mentor in an older man at the BBQ joint she works with roasting and pulling apart whole hogs.
Izzy is bright but uninterested in education. Izzy does pursue her art teacher and their affair is complicated when Izzy become pregnant. The art teacher is depressive and can't deal with a baby although he loves Izzy. Izzy won't get an abortion. When the teacher commits suicide his mother comes to Izzy with a proposition: she will fund the prenatal care and birth of her son's baby if Izzy joins an experimental community.
Dr. Grind is the product of parents who developed a childraising technique which has left him with lasting problems. He dreams of a community where children are raised by a 'village' and are not dependant on one set of flawed parents. His system will support the children with the intention of allowing them to flourish to their full potential.
Izzy joins as the only single mother. Over seven years the families struggle to change their natural instincts while developing as a community. Healthy relationships are built but also unhealthy relationships evolve which threatened to dissolve the experiment.
I appreciate Wilson's message that loving parents can inflict lasting damage on their children, and the children of distant parents can rise above and thrive. Dr. Grind's dream of a Utopian community that protects children only fails because adults are predictably imperfect. A perfect little world is whatever family we can cobble together.
A Perfect Little World was a book club read. I thank the public library for a copy of the book.
The characters are quirky and damaged and although readers get to know quite a bit about them they never really felt 'real' to me and the idea of a community of parents and babies gathered for a ten-year study on childraising was bizarre.
The main character has pluck and has forged a way to survive in the midst of neglect and tragedy. Izzy's mentally ill mother's death caused her father to withdraw into an alcoholic depression. She finds a mentor in an older man at the BBQ joint she works with roasting and pulling apart whole hogs.
Izzy is bright but uninterested in education. Izzy does pursue her art teacher and their affair is complicated when Izzy become pregnant. The art teacher is depressive and can't deal with a baby although he loves Izzy. Izzy won't get an abortion. When the teacher commits suicide his mother comes to Izzy with a proposition: she will fund the prenatal care and birth of her son's baby if Izzy joins an experimental community.
Dr. Grind is the product of parents who developed a childraising technique which has left him with lasting problems. He dreams of a community where children are raised by a 'village' and are not dependant on one set of flawed parents. His system will support the children with the intention of allowing them to flourish to their full potential.
Izzy joins as the only single mother. Over seven years the families struggle to change their natural instincts while developing as a community. Healthy relationships are built but also unhealthy relationships evolve which threatened to dissolve the experiment.
I appreciate Wilson's message that loving parents can inflict lasting damage on their children, and the children of distant parents can rise above and thrive. Dr. Grind's dream of a Utopian community that protects children only fails because adults are predictably imperfect. A perfect little world is whatever family we can cobble together.
A Perfect Little World was a book club read. I thank the public library for a copy of the book.