Many thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for gifting me a digital ARC of Laura Zigman's latest novel - 4.5 stars rounded up!
Joyce and Lydia grew up in a household with parents totally focused on their disabled daughter, Eleanor, who died when she was ten. Both Joyce and Lydia are recently divorced and Lydia has moved from California to temporarily live with Joyce in Massachusetts. Joyce works from home archiving family photos and has a hobby of making poems from Small World posts (similar to NextDoor). Joyce is looking forward to developing a better relationship with Lydia. But old relationship patterns are hard to change and the sisters are no exception. Then when new neighbors move in upstairs, the relationship fractures further.
I loved this beautifully-written, somewhat quirky tale of these two sisters trying to make a new life from the ashes of their old ones. The little poems of real life that Joyce fashions from the online posts provide another glimpse into people's lives and are a nice, typically humorous, contrast to the sisters' struggles to move on from their childhood trauma and patterns. It's also a look into how families cope when a child has a disability and how the world views them as well. I have loved Zigman's novels and am happy to recommend this one as well!
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