No Small Thing

by Orlaine McDonald

An exceptional Black British debut filled with desire and jeopardy and set on a south London estate

Three women. For a year they live in the flat below Earl's on Blossom View Estate. Then there are two.

The Runner
Livia's been running for long enough to think her past might never catch up with her. But now she's been forced to stop, catch her breath and face the daughter she left behind.
The Firecracker
Mickey is angry about a lot of things: having a mother who left and a father who didn't fight hard enough to make her stay. And with no other place to go, she's forced to need the very person who abandoned her.
The Child
Summer has a new grandmother, but she is strange and now her mum is either angry, sad or out looking for men to distract her. Summer hates school but is good at making friends: with the boy from around the corner, with Earl from upstairs in his flat filled with plants, and with the nice friend of her mum's who starts to pick her up from school.

Spanning a year, this is a novel of hope, desire and loss which explores the damage we do to the people we claim to love the most. Told with music and grace, No Small Thing reveals tender truths about motherhood, the intersection of class and race, and the history we inherit.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

256 pages, Hardcover

Published July 18, 2024

Reviews

[Pam Wright Alfie Blue Puss In Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stunning look at mothers and daughters. Heartbreaking and insightful written with true style. Told from multi characters in the first POV the daughter, the mother and the grandmother along with an outsider looking we go on a journey of year where see how the past affects the present and beyond. I found this book poignant a truly brilliant read that will stay with you. Powerful opening that sets the tone for the full novel.

[Tome - Butterfly 🦋📚🌻 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just finished reading this book and it both floored and devastated me!

I’m in awe.

The beautiful beautiful beautiful written prose is poetry reminiscent of Toni Morrison.

Set in London, the world and characters this author creates seemingly effortlessly are so expertly crafted you will question whether this is autobiographical.

I could immediately picture all the characters and at once wanted to both shake them and hug them! Frustrated by their actions that will have repercussions throughout their family’s generations but also understanding and empathetic of the trauma that puppets them.

Relatable family trauma and dysfunction that made this book and its messages resonate deeply and feel like a cathartic read and cleanse. I can’t believe this is a debut! It is worthy of all the awards it’s nominated for and its author of all the flowers!

This book deals with trauma, lust dressed up as love, emotional abuse and neglect, grief, loss of self and how the pain of those experiences ricochet through one family of women’s bloodline observed by their neighbour with his own story to tell.

Read it! It’s beautiful. I finished it within the week and am now experiencing withdrawals.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really engaging debut novel from a writer I will definitely be returning to. I enjoyed all three narratives and found the decision to (almost) announce the ending from the start effective in terms of creating a rather bleak inevitability.
Not quite five stars for me, as despite spending so much time with all three characters, I didn't really feel I got to know any of them.
Otherwise, a pacey read with plenty to commend it.

[Ella Wint-Kearney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wowwwwwwww

[Roo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing.
Heartbreaking and devastatingly sad.

[Ayesha · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book, written from the different perspectives of women in a fractured family.

[Jo Rawlins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this after its shortlisting for the Nero Prize.

Moving swiftly, in very short chapters between the perspectives of Earl, Livia, Summer and Mickey, No Small Thing explores the lives of three black women over the course of a year.

Right at the beginning, the reader is told at the end of the year, one of the three women will commit suicide by the end of the year.

This was a very powerful novel to read, lots to think about.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This evocative and emotionally challenging novel is just under 240 pages in length. It is so deep, so taut and wonderfully woven with a small cast of colourful yet flawed characters. It really is a triumph.

The author opens with a prologue that is shocking and delivers a massive emotional punch, she then goes back a year and the novel is told over the following twelve months.

A housing estate in South London, populated by ordinary working class people, an area of social deprivation, but with grassy parks and trees and wild foxes.

Earl lives on the floor above the three lead female characters; Livia, Mickey and Sunny. He spends most of his day attending to his vast array of house plants, taken from cuttings from the gardens of people that he works for. Earl is surrounded by photographs of his late mother Bibby, a woman whose words have echoed through his life forever. He observes the women in the flat below, he hears them, he sees their regular comings and goings, and he reaches out to the 'Child', Sunny.

Livia, Mickey and Sunny are three generations of the same family, yet do not know each other at all. Mickey feels that Livia failed as a mother, and this was the last place that she wanted to end up. However, her father Jimmy has died and the man she was living with was handy with his fists, Livia's flat was the last resort for her and her daughter Sunny.

This author is so skilled at portraying the issues of inequality, family trauma and race for mixed-race women in London. All three of these women have to deal with the problems of poor and unsafe housing, domestic violence and health inequalities. Yet she does this in a very down to earth fashion, there's no sentimentality here, just plain hard facts. Both Livia and Mickey have made many rash and bad decisions in their lives, and the effects on young Sunny are glaringly obvious as she struggles through her school life, with an often uncontrollable temper and an urge to know everything that is happening, Sunny's life seems to be one long round of punishment.

This is a story that can be incredibly bleak, especially as Mickey makes mistake after mistake. The cigarettes, the booze, the badly chosen sexual partners, these keep on happening, time after time. As Sunny gets a little older, she begins to question the relationships within her own family, and then seeks solace in others outside the family, but like Mickey, she doesn't always make the best choices. It is what happens within one of these 'friendships' that ultimately becomes the downfall of this family.

Blunt, raw, astute and gripping, this is a magnificent look at parenting relationships, in their many forms. Often very tender, it is also so very brutal at times. Beautifully written, with prose to savour. Highly recommended.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story about three women and their complicated journeys. At the beginning you discover that one dies and you’re left wondering which it is. Livia is the older black woman, the mother of Mickey who arrives on her doorstep with her daughter Summer after leaving an abusive relationship. Mickey hasn’t seen her mother in years since she left with no explanation and Mickey has never forgiven her and is an angry, vulnerable, addictive, volatile woman as a consequence. Sadly you realise that all three women are struggling because of being neglected by a maternal role. History repeats itself with each generation. Livia had a removed unhappy mother and she then went on to resent becoming a mother at a young age and left the family when she could no longer cope. Mickey turns to alcohol and dysfunctional relationships for solace and is not fully present for Summer who becomes violent and angry and gets in trouble at school. At the end it is Mickey who drunkenly jumps off the balcony and dies and it is then Livia’s duty to look after summer and perhaps an attempt to make up for her wrongs as a mother when being a full-time grandmother. I did enjoy the book but found the characters frustrating and their constant moments of self sabotage. There are some important themes including race, family and the important role of stable parents.

[Sarah Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was shortlisted for the Nero book price and this is what drew me to reading it
The novel follows the life of a group of three women living in a tower block in London. We were here early in the books that there has been. A death when a woman has fallen from the roof of the tile block. As the story progresses we find out about the previous lives of the three women a grandmother, mother and granddaughter.
The story touches on some difficult subjects what it feels like to be abandoned by your mother as a child and Wwhat it means to be a mother weather shit lives with her child still or not.
This is a very British book set in South London
The author has a skill to describe and develop her characters perfectly I loved the way the characters grew developed within the novel . I also like the fact that there are several small cameo rolls who are also very beautifully described.
The author has a clear easily read writing style making this book a very enjoyable read. I would recommend this novel if you like primarily character driven novels if you’ve liked a list of suspicious things by Jennie Godfrey for example, I think you’d like this novel

I personally, I didn’t really like the end of the novel. I felt it ended too soon
This review will appear on Goodreads, StoryGraph, and my book blog bionic Sarahsbooks.wordpress.com

[Eve Burniston · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it

the themes of motherhood, generational trauma, and the intersection between race and class - I was hooked, the story felt incredibly real. I think this book with sit on my heart for a while.

I also enjoyed the additional perspective of Earl, added another dimension to the narration.

4 stars because it felt quite slow for a lot of the book (but it focused on the relationships between the family, as opposed to events), and then it quickly escalated with a lot happening in a short space of time.

[Rosie Maguire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Startling and beautiful, this story kept me turning the pages and trying to guess the outcome. The prose is smart and stylish and the characters seem so deep, with backstories not details yet evident in all their thoughts and interactions. Im a bit picky about my fiction - has to be well written, heart-felt and engrossing and this wonderful debut is all 3. Highly recommend, but bring tissues.

[Christine Busuttil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this quite a difficult read due to its format being story iby a narrator most of the time from a particular characters part of the story chapter by chapter.
Once I grasped this style and having grown up and worked in the area the story is set in it all rang so sadly true.
Four stars from me for its unusual but well written approach and empathy the community portrayed.

[Matt Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to talk about a book being so lovely when it was also so heartbreaking. Following three generations of a broken family, with a grandmother, mother and daughter all brought together under one small apartment’s roof and trying to navigate their ways through the world and around each other, this is so well written and a wrenching read.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's poignant, emotionally charged, and often heartbreaking. Three generations, women who are wounded and facing something different in their life.
A moving story, recommended
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beautifully written with multiple characters point of view and short chapters. My problem with the book is the basically unlikeable characters. I liked a flawed character and enjoy different narrators but I found it personally very hard to relate to or understand these women.

[Abigail Alder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece! It’s breathtaking, it’s beautiful yet the sadness is wrap in each sentence like a grey rain cloud fit to burst. There is hope, you will each character the life they desire, the peace they need. I am in awe!

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not have the words to describe this book, or how I felt about it.
Just know, I was left at the end, a little bit broken, and with tears in my eyes.

[Sharon N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written debut novel

[Elcee · Rating 5 out of 5]

OOF!

[Rosie Concannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautifully written book about motherhood and generational trauma. Real and true to life. Heartbreaking. Crying at 2am.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earl is The Man. Wow what a great book. Hard to read such pain but there’s always hope

[Kirsten Mackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book, quite wonderful

[Claire Hewish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, devastatingly honest and real.

[Texass Schiffmacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

had deze echt lit gevonden in mn middelbare school tijd, maarja ben niet 12. dit was overigens een blind date dingetje van de boekenwinkel. las weg als een tiet wel.

[Isabelle Degrieck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sharing a roof, three generations of Black women navigate the complexities of their generational poverty, trauma and emotional neglect.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

No Small Thing by Orlaine McDonald is a raw, unflinching exploration of intergenerational trauma, motherhood, and poverty within a working-class Black family in South London.
The novel weaves together the lives of three women—grandmother Livia, daughter Mickey, and 10-year-old granddaughter Summer—as they navigate a turbulent year living together on the Blossom View Estate. By the year’s end, their fragile family unit will be reduced from three to two.

At the heart of the story is Livia, haunted by a past she can’t escape. Her deep-seated fear of being confined by the role of motherhood creates much of the tension within the family. Mickey, her daughter, is shaped by the emotional void left by Livia’s neglect and grapples with her own trauma, unknowingly passing it down to her spirited and hyperactive daughter, Summer, who may have undiagnosed ADHD.

McDonald’s writing is raw and sincere, capturing the messy, complicated lives of these women with remarkable authenticity. The novel’s multiple perspectives—ranging from neighbour Earl to the deceased matriarch Meriam—add rich layers to the story, offering more than just a glimpse into each character’s internal struggles.

The novel powerfully depicts how pain and neglect echo across generations, unravelling the complex bonds of mother-daughter relationships and the burdens of parenting. It exposes how economic hardship traps families in cycles of struggle while also offering a subtle, nuanced look at the experiences of Black women in Britain.

Though I found the pacing in the final chapters slightly rushed and slightly out of character, this is a minor flaw in what is otherwise a profoundly moving and resonant debut. No Small Thing is a powerful reflection on family, survival, and the invisible ties that both bind and break us.

Thank you again @serpentstail for the copy of this beautiful debut 💙

[Jodie Santer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up a copy of McDonald's debut novel after a friend said how moving and beautifully written it was. I'm not usually very good a reading books as I buy them, but I am so glad that I read this right away!

'No Small Thing' is a multi-generational story which follows the lives of three women on a South London estate, over the course of one year. Interspersed with reflections of the past, this novel captures the passage of time beautifully.

From one autumn to the next, we watch as a family is forced back together after Mickey escapes an abusive relationship and is left homeless. With no one else to turn to, Mickey and her daughter find themselves at the door of her estranged mother, the woman who left her as a child.

Every page of this novel is beautifully written, with poetry and prose weaving together through the multiple narratives. McDonald explores themes of love and loss, identity and family in a way that feels heartbreakingly real.

I especially loved seeing this family from Summer's perspective. The young daughter of Mickey, Summer sees the world in a way that is both too innocent and too mature. She understands things that she is too young to comprehend but, equally, finds herself in situations where she is too young to sense the danger that is before her.

A beautiful, heartfelt novel. I cannot recommend this enough.

[Jade Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘It’s no small thing, Olivia, to be a mother
Or to lose one’

A bittersweet portrayal of black motherhood and daughterhood, reminiscent of so many favourites (Queenie, Girl Woman Other, White Teeth).

The climax of the narrative seemed to come out of nowhere, even though it's foretold on the second page, and I have mixed feelings about it.