Little Fires Everywhere: The New York Times Top Ten Bestseller
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By Celeste Ng
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THE NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER
‘I am loving Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Maybe my favorite novel I’ve read this year’ John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars
‘To say I love this book is an understatement. It’s a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears’ Reese Witherspoon
The brilliant new novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller, Everything I Never Told You.
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 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 old family 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 an unexpected and devastating cost…
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Yet another book club read and one to add to your TBR pile, if you haven’t done so already. Complex relationships abound, it’s full of emotive questions about abortion, adoption, surrogacy and love. It’s skillfully written, well observed and I read it super quickly because I really wanted to find out who had started the little fires and why. The setting of Shaker Heights, with its well planned streets, perfect housing and middle class occupants sharply contrasts with the lives of Mia and her daughter Pearl who arrive to upset the lives of the Richardson family. It’s such a great read, gripping and wonderful.
This is the story of small town, Shaker Heights, Cleveland. A town with a picture perfect image. The lawns are all beautifully manicured, the houses aesthetically pleasing, the citizens regimented in their conformity, a place and a role for everything.
The Richardson family conform, headed up by mother Elena Richardson, born and raised in Shaker Heights, now a local journalist with three children, and a lawyer husband.
Their life is an ordered one, lived by the rules of Shaker Heights and their parents but all that changes with the arrival of Mia and her daughter Pearl. Mia, an artist, and her daughter Pearl have lived a nomadic life, until Mia decides that Pearl needs friends and stability, and rents out the Richardson’s apartment.
As the families lives become intertwined, the order of their lives changes. There are no longer clear demarcations between what is right and wrong, and when family friends of the Richardson’s attempt to adopt an abandoned Chinese baby, a custody battle ensues, that divides the families and the community of Shaker Heights.
Add in a past that Mia would love to leave behind and hide from her daughter and Elena Richardson’s persistent pursuit to discover the truth, and you have one hell of a novel.
Ng’s handling of all the complexities of the story are brilliant, each revelation, each drama laid out before the reader. I liken it to a present with multiple layers of wrapping, the suspense and drama increasing as each layer is pulled away. You want to savour each layer, but cannot stop yourself reading more quickly, fully immersing yourself in the unfolding story.
Little Fires Everywhere has been huge in America and having read and loved Everything I Never Told You my expectations were high and I was not disappointed. From the opening page as the Richardson family home burns to the ground I was hooked and if life had not got in the way would have devoured in one sitting.
The writing is truly wonderful, the story utterly and totally compelling.
This is definitely my book of the year.
Amanda.
