Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

I was excited to read Little Fires Everywhere for the Kewaunee Library book club, but not excited that sadly, the meeting fell during my vacation and I wasn’t able to discuss the book.

Mia Warren is a young traveling artist that spends her life moving place to place with her young daughter Pearl.  Mia and Pearl find a perfect place to live with low rent in Shaker Heights (near Cleveland).  Elena Richardson believes in subsidizing the arts and besides providing low rent, she also hires Mia part time for housekeeping.  As they settle in, Pearl befriends the Richardson children, Moody, Trip, Lexie, and Izzy. As the children to through the turmoil of high school, their lives, loves, and lies become interwoven.  Will anyone have a happy ending?

Mr. Richardson is a lawyer helping out Elena’s friends the McCulloughs.  They were trying to adopt a young Chinese orphan that was left at a fire station that they named Mirabelle.  Before the adoption can be completed, her birth mother, Bebe, a friend of Mia’s, appears.  Bebe wants her daughter Ming Lee back.  This case impacts all of those around them in various ways.  Where will the baby end up and what ripples does this cause impacting all other characters?

I enjoyed this book.  It was different with an intriguing plot.  I really liked how it showed how different people and choices that you make in your life can make a serious impact and change your path.  I may not have liked or agreed with all of the characters, but I thought they were very interesting.  I also enjoyed that the novel was set in the 90’s when I was a high school student myself.  The novel opened up interesting questions on what does define a family.  I wish I could have discussed it with someone!

Favorite Quotes:

“She had been brought up to follow rules, to believe that the proper functioning of the world depended upon her compliance, and follow them – and believe – she did.”

“To a parent, your child wasn’t just a person:  Your child was a place, a king of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the pasty you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once.”

“But the problem with rules, he reflected, is that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things.  When, in fact, most of the time there were dimply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.”

Overall, Little Fires Everywhere intrigued me with its central question of what makes a family and the impact seemingly small choices can have on your family.

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library. Thank-you!