Perfect Little World

An Earphone Award Winner

Audiobook performed by Therese Plummer

When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's at a crossroads in her life. Fresh out of high school and pregnant with her art teacher's baby, Izzy faces an uncertain future. Her mother is dead and her father is a drunk. The art teacher is too much of a head-case to help raise the child. Izzy knows she can be a good mother but without any money or prospects, she's left searching.

So when Dr. Grind offers her a space in The Infinite Family Project, she accepts. Housed in a spacious compound in Tennessee, she joins nine other couples, all with children the same age as her newborn son, to raise their children as one extended family. Grind's theory is that the more parental love a child receives, the better off they are.

This attempt at a utopian ideal starts off promising: Izzy enjoys the kids, reading to them and teaching them to cook. She even forms a bond with her son more meaningful than she ever expected. But soon the gentle equilibrium among the families is upset. Unspoken resentments between the couples begin to fester. The project's funding becomes tenuous; and Izzy's feelings for Dr. Grind, who is looking to expunge his own painful childhood, make her question her participation in this experiment in the first place.

Written with the same compassionate voice, disarming sense of humor, and charm that made The Family Fang such a success, PERFECT LITTLE WORLD is a poignant look at how the best families are the ones we make for ourselves.