Reviewed by Erin Nicole Cochran for Readers' Favorite

Small Talk with Myself by L.B. Lewis is a short non-fiction memoir that brings us into the world of one woman living on her own in isolation during the pandemic. Lewis transports the reader into the San Francisco Bay area, showing us the corner of the world that she called home during this period. Not only does the reader get glimpses of city life, but L.B. Lewis takes us in and out of her upbringing in Cleveland, Ohio, with charming anecdotes. One particular moment from page 5, when she writes about the imaginary friends she acquired as a young child, was especially poignant: “Then, they disappeared. They probably got better jobs somewhere or got married to billionaires to hire someone to post on social media all day.”

L.B. Lewis’s Small Talk with Myself is like a three-dimensional enjoyable cliff notes version of someone’s unique account of what they endured during a period that we were all required to experience, some to a more extreme degree than others. While one might think that being alone for such a long period of time might create a sense of loneliness or anxiety, Lewis, on the other hand, flourished. She learned new things, created experiences for herself through virtual sign-ups, and met new people, even if they weren’t the type of people that she probably wanted to remember. Lewis has this way of being witty and injecting her charm and personality into a narrative that is unlike any I’ve ever come across. She makes you think about your own life while letting you experience hers at the same time.