Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
It's difficult for me to enjoy books where the majority is based on reality but then certain situations or characters' actions are so ridiculous and ring so false. When this happens, it alters my entire perception on the story. This happened in Little Fires Everywhere and made it too far-fetched and frustrating for me to fully enjoy the rest of the book.
One of the things I enjoyed about this book is that there were a lot of little stories occurring throughout, which each character dealing with different or similar struggles. One of the most prominent struggle that multiple characters dealt with was wanting what you didn't have, and truly believing the grass was greener on the other side even when later they found out that wasn't the truth. There are also personal stories and experiences of secondary characters that play a large part in influencing the story line of the main characters. This made the book more interesting as otherwise with how long it is, I believe it would have dragged on too long. There were still certain portions that were a bit boring in either the descriptions of events or dialogue and I found myself trying to skim to get to the next plot point quicker.
I also enjoyed that for certain characters you felt both sympathy and disgust towards them at different points in the book, sometimes within just a few pages. It's very hard to pity or empathize with a manipulative, undeserving character, but somehow I found myself doing exactly that.
Little Fires Everywhere is also an intriguing reflection on motherhood and the sometime delicate bond between mother and child. Is a child what the mother always feared? Or did the mother create what she feared through her treatment of her child? Neglect or mistreatment, even when accidental, can have a powerful impact. It also exemplified the destructive power of secrets, misunderstandings, and miscommunication, and how easily problems could be avoided if people just said their thoughts or spoke up. And it showed how much one person's life can change when they find someone to truly care about them.
Even though I enjoyed these things about the novel and Celeste Ng's cleverness in her story line, the fact that certain characters were so outrageous and that it felt dragged out made the book not as great in my eyes. But don't take that as a reason not to read it, some of you may not get so annoyed by the characters' actions nor see it as boring.
Synopsis: Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned – from the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson.
Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When the Richardsons' friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town and puts Mia and Mrs. Richardson on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Mrs. Richardson becomes determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs to her own family – and Mia's.