Jaclyn’s Review: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Little Fires Everywhere
written by Celeste Ng
published by Penguin Press, 2017

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Target, Walmart, Book Depository, Goodreads

Did I enjoy this book? If I’m going to be fair to this book, I feel like I need to talk about it from two different angles. First, I enjoyed the overall story. I really didn’t think I was going to, and it took until I hit the 75% mark of the book before I started to like it. I think my general shift in opinion occurred when the plot turned and explained Mia’s background. Before then, it seemed as if the whole story was just a long, rambling, run-on sentence. Which brings me to my second perspective, I really didn’t like the writing style! The chapters are long, the paragraphs are long, the sentences are long. This just made the whole story hard to read and hard to follow. The author also frequently changed perspectives and would tell the story from someone else’s point of view. Typically I love that, but it seemed so disjointed and confusing in this book. Toward the end of the book, I became more accustomed to it, but I still didn’t like it.

At the beginning of the story, I thought the characters were well written and had true depth. By the end of the story, they had all become stereotypical and flat. The story starts with a fire, but the author felt the need to continue to mention fire randomly throughout the book. I’m all for a good metaphor or literary theme, but these mentions were forced and awkward. And don’t get me started on the strange “Chinese baby adoption” subplot. There are graceful ways to introduce a theme (ex. what makes a “good” mother?) and then there are glaringly obvious, strange plot points.

Overall, I’m glad I read this book before the show comes out on Hulu, and I will most definitely be watching it next month! Knowing that it was already being filmed, I could absolutely see how this story could easily translate to the screen. My gut instinct says that I ultimately did like this book since I couldn’t put it down toward the end.

Would I recommend it? I actually think my recommendation would be based on how good the show turns out to be. If the show is awful (or materially different than the book), then I’d say you should read the book for comparison. If the show is great, I really wouldn’t bother with the book. I just didn’t like the writing style and struggled to get through this one.
 

 

About the book – from Goodreads: 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 layout of the winding roads, to 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, 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 just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the alluring mother-daughter pair. 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.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of long-held secrets and the ferocious pull of motherhood-and the danger of believing that planning and following the rules can avert disaster, or heartbreak.

 

 

 

* This post contains affiliate links.

** This post first appeared on Every Free Chance Books (everyfreechance.com) on February 10, 2020.