Middle-aged librarian Nelly finds escape from her solitary world in her love for (some might say obsession with) the life and work of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the Little House on the Prairie books. Nelly\u2019s fascination with the Little House books began early, partly as a means to escape a traumatic childhood that included a domineering mother and traumatic abuse. As the novel begins, she\u2019s 45 and still enamored with Wilder\u2019s literary world\u2014so much so that after she loses her job, she retreats into Wilder\u2019s books, chatting on fan sites and compiling a Laura Ingalls Wilder bible, an encyclopedia of everything she knows about Wilder. This leads to an impulsive, Wilder-themed pilgrimage to De Smet, South Dakota, the setting for some of the Little House books. There, with the help of a fellow Wilder aficionado named Al, Nelly begins to reckon with the loss, loneliness, and longing that have defined her life. Tracey takes readers on this journey with the help of footnotes that reveal Nelly\u2019s innermost thoughts, including those about her scarring childhood and her burgeoning, life-changing romance with Al. Eventually, she begins coming to terms with her childhood, her mother\u2019s role in it, and how she\u2019s hidden her true self in Wilder\u2019s world. The narrative is by turns laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreakingly honest, a balancing act that the author manages with aplomb. The footnotes could be gimmicky, but they work effectively here to offer clever insights into Wilder and her work\u2014and into Nelly\u2019s life as well. The novel boasts a distinctive voice, thanks to its first-person point of view and Tracey\u2019s lively blend of humor, intellect, and emotional honesty. The story is full of warmth and wit that will delight readers, whether they\u2019re fans of Wilder\u2019s work or not.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Middle-aged librarian Nelly finds escape from her solitary world in her love for (some might say obsession with) the life and work of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the Little House on the Prairie books. Nelly\u2019s fascination with the Little House books began early, partly as a means to escape a traumatic childhood that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}