Celeste Ng | LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE

Plot (via 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 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 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.

Review:

I know, I know. Little Fires Everywhere? Is this review from 2017? No, I just really sucked at jumping on the bandwagon with this one. And yes, I regret not reading it first, okay? Moving on, I just need to say that I love Ng's writing. I loved Everything I Never Told You and I was eager to see if she still had the same power in writing with her second novel. Spoiler alert - Celeste Ng has still got it.

Little Fires Everywhere started off more cinematic for me and I was loving it. Ohio in the 90s in the middle of the night in the perfect suburban neighborhood...with a house on fire? GIVE ME MORE. We are quickly introduced to the Richardson family and Ng did an impressive job of showcasing each characters personality in the perfect combination of wonderment with where the plot was going. I mean, I felt like I knew this family once the story traveled back to the beginning and we were introduced to another family as well. Reeling it back, the novel does start off rather slow for about the first 75-100 pages but I still found myself immersed in Ng's prose. As I floated along with the novel, the waters kind of began to rock my boat as tensions mounted and I really eased into the meat of the story. I then found myself eager for all of it. I was eager to be experiencing Shaker Heights, I was eager to be in the presence of Ng's characters, and I really took my time getting to the bottom of what led up to and what happened that night.

One thing that I enjoyed as well with this novel was how there were a couple of other subplots that flowed brilliantly off the main story that I wasn't expecting and yet enjoyed just as much (one was a backstory, but still I needed it all!) I am going to miss these characters and absolutely adored this reading experience that was harrowing, emotional, and beautifully dramatic. This was the perfect break from thrillers that I needed and I loved the way that Celeste Ng wrapped up this story. All in all, this is the most I've used the word "perfect" in a review, but sometimes a book just is that; perfect.

Rating: 5/5