Book Review - Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Title: Little Fires Everywhere
Series: -
Author: Celeste Ng
 
Description: In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive surburb 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 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 mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregards for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
 
Review: If you want to read something completely different from a literary thriller or a chicklit, “Little Fires Everywhere” is most likely the type of book you want to pick up.
 
The story is set in the 90s, in Shaker heights, a quiet and progressive suburb in Cleveland. Everything there is planned. You can’t just paint your house in any color, each type of house has only a few color-options you can choose from. And if you don’t keep you garden in order, you will get a fine. Elena Richardson grew up in Shaker Heights and loves everything about the ordered community. Then there is Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl, who move to Shaker Heights. Mia doesn’t live life by strict rules, is open-minded. Pearl befriends the Richardson’s children and Mia even starts working for the family. But Mia has a mysterious past, that Elena wants to find out about.
 
The book stars the Richardson family on the one hand, and Mia and her daughter Pearl on the other. Mia and Pearl rent a house from Mrs. Richardson and Pearl goes to school with the children and develops a friendship with them. The Richardson take in Pearl, as does Mia with the four children, Izzy, Lexie, Moody and Trip.
 
Mia is an art photographer and takes experimental photographs. But as any artist that hasn’t gotten fame yet, money is a struggle. For the Richardson’s money has never been an issue. Elena is a journalist for the local paper and her husband Bill is an attorney.
 
The characters, their relationships and their stories are what make “Little Fires Everywhere” a success. It’s a true character study and everyone has its secrets. The life of the Richardson’s isn’t as picture perfect as they let people believe.
 
There are several subplots and I enjoyed all of them. As with the characters, most of them are very unlikeable. Which isn’t a bad thing, because I loved reading about them, getting to know more about them and learning why they are the way they are. The fact that I’m reading about characters I don’t find sympathetic and it still keeps my attention, is proof enough of how good this book is.
 
“Small Fires Everywhere” brilliantly thematizes the question of the extent to which we can shape our life to our liking, with the question of whether the affluent have more opportunities than the poor. How far can you go to give direction to your child’s life? The book is alternately touching, absurd, sharp and exciting. It holds up a beautiful mirror to the postmodern man who thinks he knows it all and can do it all and shows what a mess we sometimes make of it.
 
Rating: 4,5/ 5