Genre Fiction
![Kevin Wilson - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B002BMMH9C.jpg)
Perfect Little World: A Novel
Wilson's ambition alone is exciting. . . . [His] writing has a Houdini-like perfection, wherein no matter how grim the variables, each lovely sentence manages to escape with all its parts intact." -Boston Globe
The eagerly-anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Family Fang-a warm-hearted and moving story about a young woman making a family on her own terms.
When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's fresh out of high school, pregnant with her art teacher's baby, and totally on her own. Izzy knows she can be a good mother but without any money or relatives to help, she's left searching.
Dr. Grind, an awkwardly charming child psychologist, has spent his life studying family, even after tragedy struck his own. Now, with the help of an eccentric billionaire, he has the chance to create a "perfect little world"-to study what would happen when ten children are raised collectively, without knowing who their biological parents are. He calls it The Infinite Family Project and he wants Izzy and her son to join.
This attempt at a utopian ideal starts off promising, but soon the gentle equilibrium among the families disintegrates: unspoken resentments between the couples begin to fester; the project's funding becomes tenuous; and Izzy's growing feelings for Dr. Grind make her question her participation in this strange experiment in the first place.
Written with the same compassion and charm that won over legions of readers with The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson shows us with grace and humor that the best families are the ones we make for ourselves.
The eagerly-anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Family Fang-a warm-hearted and moving story about a young woman making a family on her own terms.
When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's fresh out of high school, pregnant with her art teacher's baby, and totally on her own. Izzy knows she can be a good mother but without any money or relatives to help, she's left searching.
Dr. Grind, an awkwardly charming child psychologist, has spent his life studying family, even after tragedy struck his own. Now, with the help of an eccentric billionaire, he has the chance to create a "perfect little world"-to study what would happen when ten children are raised collectively, without knowing who their biological parents are. He calls it The Infinite Family Project and he wants Izzy and her son to join.
This attempt at a utopian ideal starts off promising, but soon the gentle equilibrium among the families disintegrates: unspoken resentments between the couples begin to fester; the project's funding becomes tenuous; and Izzy's growing feelings for Dr. Grind make her question her participation in this strange experiment in the first place.
Written with the same compassion and charm that won over legions of readers with The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson shows us with grace and humor that the best families are the ones we make for ourselves.
Editorial Reviews
"A good story, and even better storytelling." - John Irving, The New York Times Book Review
"Wild. . . . [A] provocative read." - People
"Charming. . . . Wilson pulls off his sweet-and-tart tone. . . . The novel delights in the project's Willy Wonkaesque sense of antic chaos." - Washington Post
"Delicious. . . . Wilson is such an inventive and witty writer. . . . [His] ‘perfect little world' of a novel pretty much lives up to its title." - NPR
"Persistently compassionate. . . . Wilson's best moments are funny and earnest. . . . [His] crisp language and smart plotting make Perfect Little World immensely likable and absolutely enjoyable." - GQ
"Quirky. . . . Wilson's Perfect Little World finds its bliss in the vast disconnect between people's best intentions and where they land." - Entertainment Weekly
"The sheer energy of imagination in Wilson's work makes other writers of realistic fiction look lazy. . . . The novel's grand finale . . . reminds us that not everything unpredictable is painful or bad, and that conventional arrangements have no monopoly on the profound connections that make family." - Newsday
"Family is far more than a biological bond; that's not a groundbreaking idea. But Wilson has found a lovely new way of telling readers something they know by heart." - Houston Chronicle
"The compensation is a greater richness in the characters, and a refreshingly un-ironic attitude toward love - Knoxville News-Sentinel
"Wilson does an incredible job of telling a compelling story while addressing important social issues. . . . Thought-provoking. - Deep South Magazine
"In light and lively prose that practically tap dances on the page, Wilson shrewdly probes the intricate tensions and machinations that lie at the core of this eccentric family unit. . . . A provocative and uplifting read." - Bookpage
"Stellar. . . . Compelling. . . . Realer and wiser and sadder and eventually reassuring about human nature than dozens of other novels." - Booklist, Starred Review
"Bittersweet. . . . Wilson delves into the d...
"Wild. . . . [A] provocative read." - People
"Charming. . . . Wilson pulls off his sweet-and-tart tone. . . . The novel delights in the project's Willy Wonkaesque sense of antic chaos." - Washington Post
"Delicious. . . . Wilson is such an inventive and witty writer. . . . [His] ‘perfect little world' of a novel pretty much lives up to its title." - NPR
"Persistently compassionate. . . . Wilson's best moments are funny and earnest. . . . [His] crisp language and smart plotting make Perfect Little World immensely likable and absolutely enjoyable." - GQ
"Quirky. . . . Wilson's Perfect Little World finds its bliss in the vast disconnect between people's best intentions and where they land." - Entertainment Weekly
"The sheer energy of imagination in Wilson's work makes other writers of realistic fiction look lazy. . . . The novel's grand finale . . . reminds us that not everything unpredictable is painful or bad, and that conventional arrangements have no monopoly on the profound connections that make family." - Newsday
"Family is far more than a biological bond; that's not a groundbreaking idea. But Wilson has found a lovely new way of telling readers something they know by heart." - Houston Chronicle
"The compensation is a greater richness in the characters, and a refreshingly un-ironic attitude toward love - Knoxville News-Sentinel
"Wilson does an incredible job of telling a compelling story while addressing important social issues. . . . Thought-provoking. - Deep South Magazine
"In light and lively prose that practically tap dances on the page, Wilson shrewdly probes the intricate tensions and machinations that lie at the core of this eccentric family unit. . . . A provocative and uplifting read." - Bookpage
"Stellar. . . . Compelling. . . . Realer and wiser and sadder and eventually reassuring about human nature than dozens of other novels." - Booklist, Starred Review
"Bittersweet. . . . Wilson delves into the d...
Readers Top Reviews
Readist
I like Kevin Wilson, but this was actually slightly boring. You wouldn't think the subject matter could get boring, but it was a bit predictable and the ending was a bit Hollywood. Even so, the guy can write.
RunsInCirclesDeb V
I read "Nothing to See Here," by the same author. That book was engaging, funny, a novel plot, with engaging characters. This book was not. The characters were okay but I really didn't care what happened to them. Not a lot happened in the ten years covered by the novel. And the humor? The author has the ability to deliver, but didn't here. If you want humor and an engaging plot, read his other book, but not this one.
Kindle 8bit Dreams
This book was recommended on a blog that I read, but I felt it didn't live up to its promise. It starts with the compelling story of a young woman who is very bright and very alone. She has an affair with her high school teacher, a wealthy and troubled artist. Then that entire back story goes away and she agrees to take part in a social experiment to provide a direction for her life and support for the child she had with the teacher. The experiment goes wrong, but not very dramatically, and everyone finds their own happiness. The vast of characters is huge and they are introduced with enough details that you think something will happen with them, but it never does.
J. Johnson
I recently took a trip to NYC and brought Perfect Little World on the train with me, after hearing about it on Book Riot and then seeing it as a choice for Book of the Month. I figured fate was telling me it was time to pull this one out of the To Be Read pile and into the Currently Reading pile. Yes, I have a pile of books that I am currently reading. This was a great little book to take on a trip and was just a fun read. The book centers on Izzy who is sleeping with her art teacher in HS in Part 1 of the book. She is the top of her class, but wants to fail, so she doesn't have to give the valedictorian speech. She has a disconnected father and works in a BBQ shop where her manager is her father figure. As one can guess, Izzy becomes pregnant with her teacher's baby and he takes off on her. Lost and really alone, she runs into Dr. Grind. Grind is a psychologist who is about to start a study on communal living. Parents will care for each other's children and the children will not know who their biological parents are until later on in the experiment. The cost for Izzy is 10 years of her and her child's life, but all expenses are paid and she will get a free college education. Part 2 is each year of the experiment. I won't spoil it, but one can guess things will not run smoothly. There will be difficulty with some parents letting others raise their child, family issues, sexual tension, and a whole slew of other issues that happen when people are thrown together for long periods of time. The interesting thing is this is normal for their children since this is their lives, so they do not know there are problems. Can the program survive all of this with individual personalities running amok? This was both a funny and insightful book at the same time. While the focus should be on the children and what will become of the them, the real experiment happens with the adults. Izzy is a single parent too in the midst of families who signed up for this, so she is always the outsider in terms of being the youngest and single, so her perspective will always be different. So, it is nice to travel with Izzy as our narrator. The fun is seeing how bad this experiment gets. It doesn't get outrageous in the sense of diverging from reality, but it is very real as in what happens when one couple wants to divorce one another mid experiment? Or what about living in community where your wife isn't your own wife or husband isn't your only husband? While couples are expected to stay with one another, what happens when alcohol is introduced? I found the book a fun read that got a bit laggy at times, but it could have been my situation of being stuck on a train rather than the book itself. It was a simple read too that drew me into the situation. While the couples got jumbled a bit, part of that was the point as Izzy acknowledges that s...
