Rating: 4.5/5
Page Count: 352
“Passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches.”
A very realistic fiction that made me question myself whether I value stability over everything or not. This novel is definitely an escape from fantasies, and proves that strong characters can cover up for not so strong plots.
“Anger is Fear’s bodyguard.”
Synopsis!
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.
(From Goodreads)
“The problem with rules was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.”
My Thoughts!
I’d have definitely dropped this novel because of the stereotypical rich-kids-meet-the-poor-intellectual vibes the initial chapters gave me if it wasn’t for Litmosphere BOTM, and I’m very glad I didn’t! I haven’t read anything like Little Fires Everywhere. Throughout the novel, I felt like I was looking into the lives of people in some daily soap drama with a surprisingly not tacky plot line.
Ng has juxtaposes the meticulously planned lives of the Richardsons with the vagabond-like lives of the Warrens, Mia and Pearl. When worlds collide, people can’t help but dig into the foreign soil and try to absorb its smell and that’s what exactly Pearl and Izzy do, Elena Richardson does that to but she refuses to admit.
Little Fires Everywhere raises a very pensive question in the minds of the readers: Is the bond of blood and womb stronger than that of love? The case of May Ling or Mirabelle had my heart and mind at conflict just the way the town of Shaker Heights was. I was satisfied with the judge’s decision yet where the baby ended made me happy. (I briefly explained the situation to my mum and in her opinion the McCulloughs’ were more suitable parents than merely because of the lack of stability in her life.
The characters are so fleshed out, I was informed of every nuance of their personalities. Shaker Heights is described the very same way, the undue descriptions were downright annoying. Ng seemingly wants her readers to thoroughly know the core reason behind the excessively arranged lives of the residents of Shaker Heights and thus, she, perhaps, floods some chapters with the history of the town. I also didn’t enjoy reading about the grandparents of Elena Richardson – you can imagine just how much information there is. However, the transitions are so well crafted that you can’t hate the piles of information, you might just have a slight- at times strong – urge to skip it.
The ending was so neat, I loved it! Is it a must read? Yes, definitely!
fiction over reality 