Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng Published by Penguin Press on September 12th 2017
Pages: 384
Source: Borrowed from the Library
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In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo 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 Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. <
Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood - and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
Well, I don’t really know where to start. Little Fires Everywhere wasn’t even close to being on my radar. Even though it was all over the blogosphere and Goodreads, it just didn’t seem like something that I would be interested in so I didn’t pay it any mind. Then, during all of the end of year wrap-ups, it was like I couldn’t STOP seeing this book and the reviews were AMAZING. It’s rare that I see a book pop up in my Goodreads and the majority of the reviews are 5 stars, normally they are more spread out so it got my attention and then it seemed that I couldn’t stop thinking about this book that I knew nothing about and had no interest in reading. So, I put it on hold at the library and suddenly I wanted to read it SO BADLY. I couldn’t wait for my hold to come through and when it did I was chomping at the bit to devour it. Well, there is something to be said about your initial reaction to something.
I’m just going to get this out of the way straight off the jump and I will dive in from there. I DID NOT like Little Fires Everywhere. Honestly, I’m as surprised as probably everyone that read it. It’s really, really rare that I am the black sheep when it comes to books. I usually share the same opinion as the general population so even though I had no interest in this initially, I did expect to be wowed like (seemingly) the rest of the world.
What I did like about the book were some of the characters. I LOVED Mia, loved, loved, LOVED her. I thought she was an amazing mother and an amazing person overall. She made some mistakes along the way and she certainly didn’t live her life the way everyone expected her to but she was a fantastic character. I was so happy that I got to see the bits of her life from her young adult age to her as an adult, it made me love her more. I also loved Izzy and Moody. Well, to be fair I think I really liked all of the children in their own way and I liked how they each played such a big part in Pearl’s life.
While I really loved some (maybe even most) of the characters, I absolutely despised Mrs. Richardson. She was such a nosy, judgemental person. Even that last bit at the end of the book made no difference to me. She played such a part in the shitty and sad ending of this book that I just can’t get over it. She is awful.
The plot/story dragged on for me SOOO much. I had little desire to continue reading for the first 150 pages, and really the only reason I did was that I just HAD to see what everyone was over the moon about. I was still convincing myself that the tides were turning and I would fall madly in love with the story. I did think it was pieced together really well how you find out everything so I really liked that aspect though. And the whole story about Bebe. Gosh, that was just overall heartbreaking. I legitimately don’t have an opinion on that aspect of the story because I can just bloody well imagine how ALL parties involved in that situation feel. Now, the ending. To be fair, if it wasn’t for the ending I would have rated this book higher because I did like the characters and I did like how the story was coming together (despite it dragging on so badly at the beginning). I just HATED the ended. I won’t spoil this for anyone that hasn’t read it and wants to but WOW, I was SO angry about how it ended. I was so sad for Pearl and the kids, and ugh.
All that being said, I still can totally see why everyone liked Little Fires Everywhere. It’s just hands down, not the book for me. I’d still recommend this to you, IF you were interested in this one outside of the hype. If you were swept up by the hype like me, it might not pan out for you. I could be absolutely wrong, but for me, I should have trusted my initial impression and never picked it up.
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