Tiny House, Big Fix

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Sadie works as a framer, building houses. She lost her own home in a recent divorce and now lives with her two daughters in a rented bungalow. When her landlady says she needs to move out, Sadie finds there's a housing crisis in her community. She can't find a place to live and is forced to move her family into a travel trailer at a local campsite.

When her ex-husband finds out, he insists that the girls come live with him in another city. Desperate to keep her daughters with her in their home community, Sadie is forced to rethink her dream of living in a full-sized house.

In the short term, she moves her girls into a co-worker's apartment. Then, with the help of her friends and daughters, she builds a tiny house. In the process she finds living with less has its rewards and that living in a small space brings her family closer together.

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 29, 2019

About the author

Watch for Gail's new novel, The Almost Widow, a thriller, released May 2023.

GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ’s first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the UK’s Betty Trask Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Vancity Book Prize. Her second novel, A Recipe for Bees, was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Spawning Grounds was nominated for the Sunburst Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award and short-listed for the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Fiction. Her thriller, The Almost Wife was a national bestseller in 2021, and her most recent novel, The Almost Widow, is out in May 2023.

Gail also writes young adult and hi-lo books for the educational market. Her book Iggy’s World was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and shortlisted for the Chocolate Lily Book Awards. The Ride Home was short-listed for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize, as well as the Red Cedar Fiction Award and the Chocolate Lily Book Award.

She taught for nearly a decade in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of British Columbia and now mentors writers online. Gail Anderson-Dargatz lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.

Reviews

[Vickie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this with my adult literacy learner. We really enjoyed reading this together. It was very accessible for him as an ESL learner and it opened up a lot of discussions about raising children, finding housing, and ways to get through a family crisis together.

[Kris Stevenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to learn about tiny house design and living but this was essentially a novel about the main character and her daughters. The actual home construction/move was only addressed in the last 10 pages of the book which was disappointing. It was a quick skim/read.

[Matte Resist · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm in the process of building a tiny house. The very beginning process where I'm tearing down an old camper trailer. So I recently requested a bunch of tiny house books from the library. The other night I couldn't sleep and didn't want to read the big book I'm in the middle of. I grabbed this one because it looked like it would be a quick read. If there hadn't been library stickers on the cover, I MIGHT have noticed that it's part of the "rapid reads" series. It was a very rapid read. I was about halfway into it when I started thinking, when do we get to the part about the tiny house? I mean, there was mention of a tiny house, but not much more. I was in that place where I was tired, but couldn't sleep, so I just kept reading. I was damn near to the end of the book before there was any mention of building a tiny house. It took 4 or 5 pages to build it. The guy and girl hooked up, the kids were happy, she got her house built in a couple months of weekends and was able to put it on her coworker's land under the condition that they'd help her build one too. Her house would be be a tiny "show house" so they could all start their dream business and maybe a tiny house village. It's a little embarrassing, but up until this point I thought I was reading a true story. I should have known better, but I didn't realize that I'd checked out a fiction book and I was half-asleep when I was reading it. When every single thing came together perfectly in the end though, I was like "Fuck no. This doesn't happen." So then I looked, and sure enough it was a little novel.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really hoping for more detail about tiny houses but the story focuses on the desperation of a mother caught in a seemingly un-winnable situation when she finds herself and her daughters facing homelessness. Until everything conveniently falls into place, of course. The author hand-waves away some issues that, in real life, would be a constant worry for these characters. Makes a nice point about how having "stuff" actually gets in the way of our relationships with each other but treats the real problems facing the main character too superficially.

[Mimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea for this short novel came from a tiny-house project the author's daughter's school was doing. The author is from Canada and she looked into the housing crises in her province and found homelessness is a problem there. Perhaps the tiny house movement is a solution to the housing crises. The author took the idea for a single mom with two daughters finding themselves homeless and then building a tiny house for the solution to their problem. This novel only took me an hour to read but it was a very good story and gives one food for thought. I give it a thumbs up!

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nicely written fiction short read. It's simplistic story about a divorced family needing a home in an area with very limited housing. It depends on what the reader is looking for in a story. I prefer a few more characters with side plots going on, as well as more facts and practical information on the houses themselves. It wasn't much of a page turner for me personally, but I finished it.

[Melanie McFarlane · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, rapid read for adult ESL students!

[Valary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting YA and while I love the tiny house movement and the plan to decrease homelessness, this book seems simple and slightly pedantic.

[Gail Richmond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brief fictional narrative that encompasses the question: Why a tiny house? and then addresses several of the issues that must be addressed. Brief and engaging.

[Carrie Blythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars

[Kathy velez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute and a very quick read.

[Kathy O’Neal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light and easy read.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it. Used it with English Language Learners. Short, positive book.

[Jara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book that made me want to tour a tiny home village. I even loved the unexpected romance.