Little Wonder

by Kat Gardiner

Asymmetric and misremembered, Kat Gardiner fictionalizes the experience of opening and closing an all-ages music venue and café with her husband in a small Pacific Northwest town. An adult coming-of-age story told in fragments, Little Wonder, explores the bittersweet love affair that takes place between dispair and hope whenever you try with all your heart to do something you believe in, and fail.

"All of the descriptions of the town and the feelings there are so accurate and truthful and achy... I can see the sun sinking down over Anacortes at the end of every page. Little Wonder has the ache of Raymond Carver, the honesty, the vulnerability. It's so melancholic and honest and beautiful." - Kyle Field of Little Wings

Genres: Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2018

Reviews

[RL · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an immersive delight. Gardiner’s snapshots into her year as a café owner in an unfamiliar town in the PNW were atmospheric and beautiful in their brevity. She has a great sense of humor! I’m inspired, as is the wonderful friend who gifted me this book, to try and focus my writing to also capture at least a fraction of the beauty found in ordinary details.

When we’d first opened, a middle-aged man came into the café. “This town,” he said, “loves to see people move here, open businesses, close businesses.” He laughed and I wanted to tear his eyes out. I still do. But that last day at the bar with The Gift Machine, I mourned him. I mourned all of them. Surrounded by the ghosts of my past, I shed all the messy tears I had over people I knew would have never cried for me.

[Doug Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kat Gardiner’s micro-fiction/non-fiction takes us through a year of hope and heartbreak in the life of their all-ages music venue and cafe. This book is a small and satisfying, very human, read.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in three sittings--It is short enough that it could have been one, but I needed time between the hopeful beginning of the story, the frustrating middle, and the sad end. Gardiner does such a good job of showing this story of a failed venture, all the small slights and large hurdles that eventually proved too much for her and her husband's idealism and just plain good idea to surmount. I found myself nodding along at several points--not because I have opened an ultimately failed business, but because I have failed before, and that feeling of unfairness/exasperation is universal. I also really enjoyed the shoutouts to the local musicians that weave in and out of the text. A note at the end says they are real bands and they really played there--as a result, I was ultimately confused by the label of "fictionalized." Was the failure accentuated for my reading pleasure? Were characters conflated for privacy reasons? The difference between the two informs the contract with this reader, and so I'm left wondering if I was just given a look inside a shared and meaningful experience or some lovely PNW fiction. Either way, the reading time was time well spent.

[Emily Dewhirst · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this book in the sweetest bookshop in Brooklyn, Books are Magic. I was immediately intrigued by the unique storytelling format and the fact that while on vacation, this small town Washington State girl found a book about small town Washington State. I knew I had to have it even more when I read the first piece in the book.

The entire book is made up of one page snapshots of life running a cafe/music venue in a northern Washington town. Her writing is stunning and truly immersive. I absolutely adored it and want to so badly read more. Please go find this book and devote an hour or two with a good drink and slip away into the story.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the little vignettes that gave just a taste of what the rollercoaster experience of opening and closing one’s own business is like. Most of the stories were absurd and sad, with a couple of heartwarming ones sprinkled in. The feeling of wanting to belong and knowing you’ll never belong is universal, and Gardiner’s words captured this feeling very well. The particular order and the titles of the vignettes also made sense.

[Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s so beautiful. I feel everything in this place that I’ll never go to, because that would ruin it. I feel that I’ve lived a year in the life of this woman, felt the hope and heartbreak and had so much fun, fucking up and learning and loving the people around me that I’ll never talk to again. What a beautiful world.

[Sara Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the type of writing that makes me want to write better. I know it's somewhat fictionalized, yet I can viusalize, feel, smell, and want to believe with awe in all the little wondrous bubbles. This is an experience in Anacortes. I hope there is a future wonder from Detroit.

[Victors · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of life with all it's hopes, loves, and despair. So good that I memorized a few lines.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful vignettes, like looking through a book of polaroids from the author’s memory.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somebody failed to edit this book. I found so many grammar mistakes (like using double words or forgetting to delete a word). It was also a bit boring. I probably would not recommend this book.

[Mar Coniglio · Rating 3 out of 5]

fragmented postcards from overly self-referential - but still beloved - pacific northwest.

[Jim Ivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but the water was finally about to boil after watching it for so long, and then it closed.

[Siggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good my new favorite book so poetic so amazing