In Shaker Heights people live by the rules, and anyone who doesn't follow those rules is regarded with suspicion. Someone like Isabelle Richardson, youngest daughter of the Richardson clan, is seen as something of an outsider. When she leaves the family home, having burned it to the ground, people are convinced she has finally gone mad. What on earth could have caused such an action?
Initially I found it hard to place this story. We jumped from the fire - which immediately roused my curiosity - to mother and daughter, Mia and Pearl, who have moved to the area and are renting a home from Elena Richardson. How could these very different characters be linked?
Though it felt slow to get going, there's no doubt that this is the kind of story that rewards looking beneath the surface. Having introduced us to the key characters we are then shown a little of their interactions, their past and we get a clear sense of who they are as characters.
Mia and Pearl seem destined to cause upset in the area, but it isn't immediately obvious just how much damage will be done.
The side-story of Elena's friends trying to adopt an abandoned Chinese baby seemed to come from nowhere, but it helps us to learn more about the background to some of our key players and to come to understand their motivation for acting as they do. It also allowed our younger characters the opportunity to explore their own views on identity and motherhood.
An enigmatic read, that I would highly recommend. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for my review.

Lauded by many who have read and reviewed it, I didn’t know very much about the story when I picked this up, just that it seems to be universally praised, particularly by American readers. The reception here in the UK is a little more muted, maybe because the setting is an affluent suburb in 90’s America.

The story centres around 2 families, the Richardsons and their tenants, Mia and Pearl Warren. Both families become emotionally invested in a custody case, which raises questions of race, culture, family, rights of the child, and rights of the mother.

An enjoyable read, but not the outstanding one I was expecting. Some of the details of the community where the story is based didn’t quite seem plausible to me - house colours be selected from an approved list, bins to be collected from the back of houses so as not to disrupt the perfect view of the place, the length of grass on lawns and verges to be kept cut to a certain standard - it all seemed a bit ridiculous to me, and unnecessary to the story. But maybe places like this existed in 1990s America? Maybe they still do?

Also, who names their child Moody?

When I first reviewed Everything I Never Told You earlier this year, I commented on the strengths of Ng's writing, her ability to deftly characterise the actors in her novels in assured strokes, but I didn't rate the book higher than 3* because I felt that some of the threads remained unsolved and that the fallout from some of the characters' choices didn't really get explored in any detail.

Little Fires Everywhere promptly puts all those qualms to sleep, because Ng has not only kept her strengths, she's managed to really improve on her weaknesses as well, to deliver a much more nuanced book. First though, I will say this about the setting: are we now seriously at a point where a book set in the '90s feels this dated? Pagers and the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's presidency and small suburban life, everything that now seems a bit... old hat. How bizarre to think that this book takes place only 20 years ago but already some of the things that take place really could only happen because mass market access to the Internet hadn't arrived yet, that Mrs Richardson's research has to take place with old fashioned phone calls and driving around.

The story takes place in Shaker Heights, a community that prides itself on order and careful planning, where everything is in its right place and all decisions are made by committee, where houses and driveways and gardens are neat and spotless, where all the children are fed by middle-class incomes and ambition and great dreams, geared for success. Into this placid community come Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl, itinerant artist and teenage child, who rent a house from the wealthy Richardsons. Soon, Pearl is a staple at their house, friends with popular Lexie, heartthrob Trip and quiet Moody (but not wayward Izzy). Mia, however, carries a secret with her, one that could easily upend the order of Shaker Heights and change things forever. When a court case over the custody of a Chinese baby splits the community, Mia and Elena Richardson find themselves on opposing teams and soon, everything will come to a head.

Like Everything I Never Told You, the story opens with a dramatic event (a house on fire) and moves backwards from there, through the lives of all these characters, the history of Mia and Pearl, the desires and fears of Elena Richardson and the way they have shaped her relationships with others in Shaker Heights, including her children. There were times when I found it hard to drum up much sympathy for her, because she comes across as someone who is, unfortunately, rather narrow-minded: she thinks she's nice to people and supportive, but really, underneath it all, she judges those women (like Mia, like Bebe Chow) who make choices she disapproves of and when she sets on a path to essentially "punish" them, it's hard to stop her. When she learns who Trip is dating, her immediate thoughts are on why her son would choose someone so... inferior, in her reckoning, so uninteresting and boring (as if she, herself, were not, as if her own daughter were not just a teenager too).

But I like the topics that Ng tackles here: adoption (particularly interracial adoption) and the racist overtones it carries, as well as the question of motherhood and second changes; teenage pregnancy and abortion and sex, which I haven't seen tackled in many of these contemporary novels (or rather not the ones I read, anyway); the question of what makes a family actually a family, whether love is enough to erase a child's ethnicity and whether money can paper over any differences, any conflicts. The suburban life in Shaker Heights does hide some ugly things beneath it and I actually enjoyed watching Lexie come to terms with her choice, but also with the expectations that are set on her (and those around her). The manta of being raised "better than that" hides an inability to deal with failure, with mistakes or with normal teenage rebellion.

It's clear how much better Ng has got at her craft. I found Little Fires Everywhere to be much more engrossing and real than Everything I Never Told You. The characters are more vivid, the issues more visceral and although it's obvious where Ng stands on the issues she presents, she does allow her characters to be on the opposite side, without punishing them for it. Sure, the ending is a little bit "happily ever after", but I don't actually hold it against her. There are some strands left in an ambiguous state, but unlike her previous book, this didn't annoy me. I'm okay with not knowing everything. From the high standard of this novel, I look forward to seeing what Celeste Ng comes out with next.

In the opening chapter of ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ by Celeste Ng, the Richardson family home in the affluent suburb of Shaker Heights near Cleveland, Ohio, is burning to the ground in a fire believed to have been started deliberately by their rebellious daughter, Izzy. The story looks back at the events which led to this catastrophe, ultimately beginning when the Richardsons’ tenant, Mia Warren, becomes a part-time housekeeper for the family and Mia’s fifteen-year-old daughter Pearl, befriends the Richardson teenage siblings Lexie, Trip, Moody and Izzy.

I really enjoyed reading Ng’s debut novel ‘Everything I Never Told You’ in 2014 and her second novel is an ambitious step forward in terms of scope, structure and character development. ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ revolves around three interconnected storylines about parenthood concerning abortion, surrogacy and adoption. The adoption storyline involves a case which divides the whole community, in which family friends of the Richardsons attempt to claim custody of a Chinese baby abandoned at a fire station by Bebe, one of Mia’s colleagues at her other part-time job at a restaurant. To say which characters are directly implicated in the other plot strands would be to reveal too much too soon, but Ng thoughtfully addresses the knotty debates surrounding race, social class, age and privilege in each situation, skilfully untangling them from several different perspectives and sensitively laying out the facts and the context to show that there are no real winners or easy solutions. The mid to late 1990s setting is brilliantly portrayed as a relatively recent yet innocent time before the ubiquity of social media and smartphones, allowing the characters to keep secrets from each other for much longer than they would be able to today.

The fire metaphors may not be subtle but they are numerous and very apt, from Mia’s disregard for conformity and “scorched earth” policy whenever she moves away in stark comparison to Mrs. Richardson’s repressed “spark” and her belief that “Rules existed for a reason: if you followed them, you would succeed; if you didn’t, you might burn the world to the ground.” The whole plot arc itself is something of a slow-burn as the story tends to go off on long tangents exploring the back stories of several characters, notably Mia’s mysterious past as well as some intriguing background concerning Elena, who Ng pointedly refers to from a distance as “Mrs. Richardson” throughout much of the story.

‘Little Fires Everywhere’ is an excellent novel with outstanding characterisation which has earned itself a last minute entry on my books of the year list. Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Group for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

Little Fires Everywhere was a fantastic read. The story of two contrasting families, their intersecting relationships and how they land on different sides of complex adoption case is set in a ridiculously perfect American suburbia which is almost another character itself.

I was hooked right from the start and really enjoyed the way the story unfolded - I think Ng got the balance right between introducing ‘twists’ in the story and allowing readers the satisfaction of predicting events.

This is a novel which is satisfying as a narrative but also leads readers to think about our place in society, the values we reward and the kind of people we admire and follow - I kept thinking about Little Fires Everywhere long after reading it.

Kinship, racial tensions and family dynamics are put under the microscope in this strange examination of American small-town life.  The novel opens at the close, with the affluent Richardson family's house on fire, then flicks back to describe what exactly has gotten everyone to this point.  Eldest child Lexie reports that 'The firemen said there were little fires everywhere [...] Multiple points of origin.  Not an accident'.  Youngest child Izzie is absent from the scene and it is quickly assumed that she is responsible.  It would be a mistake though to assume that this is a novel about pyromania - the over-arching theme is motherhood and all its manifestations.

The setting is 1990s Shaker, one of America's first planned communities.  Everything is well ordered, right down to the appropriate length of the grass on the lawns.  The Richardsons are among its proudest and most long-standing members, liking to feel that they are giving back to the community by being good landlords to their rental properties.  Ng signals their distance to us though by the way that Mrs Richardson is always called just that and almost never by her first name Elena.  New arrivals to Shaker are Mia and Pearl Warren, mother and daughter and new tenants for the Richardsons. After years of travelling from place to place, artist Mia has promised her daughter that they will settle down, put down roots.  Pearl makes friends quickly with Moody, the third Richardson child and finds herself swept up by their clan.  Her mother Mia is more circumspect, trying to keep her distance and unsure about their influence on her daughter.

Little Fires Everywhere captures the decade so well - the moment when Lexie Richardson refers to something as ironic when Pearl recognises it really was not ironic at all was almost too perfect, capturing the confusion that Alanis Morissette's song inflicted upon a generation.  So too is the way that the Richardson children settle down to watch Jerry Springer every day after school, a show long since past its sell-by date.  It irritates me when authors set their work in the recent past as a way of getting around modern technology, but this did not feel like that.  Ng is instead calling upon the more naive attitudes, such as when Lexie turns and remarks of Shaker, 'I mean we’re lucky. No one sees race here'.  1990s was the decade when it was believed that we could move past racial prejudice and become blind to colour - I have a memory of an assembly from when I was aged around ten where a teacher said something very similar.

Ng herself grew up in Shaker so it can be safely assumed that she knows of what and whom she speaks.  She takes clear aim at the self-satisfaction and privilege at the heart of the community.  Close friends of the Richardsons are the McCulloughs, who are in the process of adopting an abandoned Chinese baby after years of infertility.  Aged one, little Mirabelle McCullough is an adored and treasured child, but when Mia overhears that the infant was found at a fire station, she recognises that this must be the lost child of one of her co-workers, who abandoned her baby while in the grip of a post-partum crisis.  Having now got herself together, Bebe Chow wants her daughter May Ling back.  The question of what makes a mother, 'was it biology alone, or was it love?' is a thorny one and goes to the heart of the novel.

The resultant custody battle between the wealthy McCulloughs and the impoverished Bebe splits the community.  Mrs Richardson supports her friend, saying 'Honestly, I think it’s a tremendous thing for Mirabelle. She’ll be raised in a home that … doesn’t care, not one infinitesimal bit, what she looks like.'  Others point out that Bebe abandoned her baby and can hardly expect to have her back now.  In a shift in tone, Ng includes an omniscient chapter countering all of the charges against Bebe which would mark her as an unfit mother.  The lawyer who has decided to represent Bebe free of charge asks Mrs McCullough how she will keep May Ling 'connected with her birth culture'.  There is a long pause and then Mrs McCullough responds helplessly, 'Pearl of the Orient is one of our very favourite restaurants'.  She is not a bad woman, she is trying her best and she sincerely loves her baby - but the scene makes us squirm very effectively.

All the same, I found this is a difficult area to respond to.  I feel unqualified to comment on racial issues, but I do have strong opinions about the importance of children having a loving and stable home.  I have seen all too many children who do not get to have this.  Perhaps biased by my own upbringing, I have always subscribed to the view that one sane parent is all that any child needs.  Yet when it comes down to it, I also do remember the words of George Eliot's Silas Marner, who adopted a baby girl abandoned by his door, not knowing that she was the daughter of the local squire.  Years later, being without an heir, Squire Cass comes by to reclaim her but is told no, that if you turn a treasure away, you do not get to have it back later.  I appreciate that there are other issues at play here but unfortunately, parenting is not something that you can hit pause on.

In the background to all of this is Lexie Richardson, Lexie who has bright plans for college, Lexie who has a boyfriend Brian, Lexie who loves babies.  Lexie who is unexpectedly pregnant.  There is also Pearl Warren who has no obvious father on the scene and whose mother always did insist on them moving all through Pearl's childhood.  It transpires that she was hired as a surrogate but became attached to the unborn child.  Then there is Izzie, youngest of her family and always in some form of trouble.  A constant source of irritation to her mother, Izzie is with her own blood family and yet has no sense of belonging.

Little Fires Everywhere is at its strongest when it comments on privilege.  Particularly well caught was the discomfort felt by Mrs Richardson as she realises that Mia Warren does not envy her life, that Mia is in fact contented.  For Mrs Richardson, who has avoided passion at every corner, who has chosen a well-ordered, well-regulated existence in Shaker, the idea that someone who is so much less privileged can be happy is a personal affront.  Mrs Richardson's dreams of being a 'real' journalist as opposed to writing puff pieces - she set them aside long ago, but they come back out again along with her claws as she tries to put right her world view.

The characters of Little Fires stayed with me for a good few days after completion of the book.  Ng stuck a definite knife into the idea that privilege earns one a right to parent. There are three separate families who lose their child despite having apparently infinite amounts of money.  All the same, in common with a lot of books that put their ending at the beginning, I found myself dissatisfied with the ultimate explanation of how the ending was reached.  I could imagine Ng starting off with the image of the house on fire but the journey to get there failed to convince.  If we know from early on that Izzie was guilty, it would have made sense to put her front and centre but yet she always felt like a background character, her motivations murky at best.

Having said all that, Little Fires is a shiny, intelligent book with a cast of shiny, intelligent characters.  Like the Shaker community which it criticises, the book is well-organised and well put together.  The story has been optioned by Reese Witherspoon and will no doubt make for a compelling drama series.  The question of what makes a parent is one of the eternal conundrums, with Ng emphasising that even biological bonds can be driven to breaking point.  Ng has created a novel with no characters who are truly bad, where everybody believes that they are acting for the best and depicted vividly how the hurt caused remains devastating.  Ng's narration flies above her characters, but also walks among them, leaving the uncomfortable question of how far we ourselves are capable of similar unintentional insensitivity.

I unfortunately missed the download due to incorrect archive date. This will not happen again. Sorry for the inconvenience. I will read and review the finished publication.

Having loved "Every I Never Told You", I was extremely excited to read this new book by Celeste Ng. And she really didn't disappoint. Turning her observant eye on the trials and tribulations of suburbia, the story centers around the Richardson family, with their perfect house, their perfect lives and upstanding member of the local community, mother Elena.
Set in Shaker Heights in the suburbs of Cleveland, it all start off a bit like Stepford Wives, in a world where it feels like barely a blade of grass is out of place. Into this perfect world burst Mia Warren and her daughter, Pearl, who rent the Richardsons' second house, immersing themselves in life in Shaker Heights and also the Richardson family, who all seem drawn to them like moths to a flame...
Mia and Pearl are a non-traditional family unit in the ordered world that they find themselves. A single mother / daughter, with a mysterious past, an unknown father, a nomadic lifestyle and absolutely no intentions of conforming to the norms of the 'burbs.
Elena's sons are drawn to Pearl, her daughters to Mia, whereas her husband becomes everyone's mortal enemy by defending an adoption case for some old friends against an impoverished Chinese girl who befriends Mia. As the present spirals out of control, Elena starts digging into the past to try and restore order, with devastating results for both Mia, Pearl and her own family.
This is another fantastic read from Ng. She creates vivid characters who come to life off the written page, weaving believable narratives around them to create phenomenal fiction. I can't wait to read whatever she pens next!

This is the first book I have read by Celeste Ng, and I really enjoyed it. I demolished it in a couple of days, suddenly finding myself three quarters of the way through without even realising!
Each character was so compelling in their own way, and Ng’s insistence on leaving unraveled, tangled, and loose ends was one of my favourite parts of her writing.
This is no fast paced drama, but an emotive and engaging coming-of-age story coupled with complex family dynamics, small town politics, and additional questions around race, culture, and socioeconomic development.
I look forward to reading more of her work.

This was such an amazing read, I don't think I will ever be able to do it justice. I loved everything about this book: the characters, the story, the style... I am just gushing over this!!

This was the first Celeste Ng book I read, but I'm sure it will not be my last. I adored her writing style: it was clear and detailed enough to make me feels inside the story, but never too long-winded. This was one of those books that I just couldn't put down: I was so drawn into the story that I just had to see what would happen next, where it would all lead.

I'm personally very much into stories revolving around family drama and dark secrets, so the plot of this one was right up my alley. I particularly liked the way in which two very different (if not outright opposing) family units come up one against the other, which led perfectly to deeper reflections on what makes a family "good"? Is it just order and keeping up appearances as Mrs. Richardson would have it, or is Mia's spontaneity and disregard for socially-approved customs the right way to go? Or perhaps neither?

I was fascinated by the characters. True, some were explored much more deeply than others, and I was sorry that we only got snippets of what the men in here were thinking, but women were definitely the main focus here. Both of the two main adult females walk down a path that could potentially lead them to self-destruction - and take their families with them. I loved the way in which the author explored boundaries: just how far can relationships stretch before they break? How far can a mother go to make sure her children stay safe, to keep her worst fears from becoming true? And just how much does she nurture the growth of those fears and their concretisation through her behaviour?

These and many other questions were raised, and most are still circling around my brain the more I think about this book. A story developed on multiple levels, Little Fires Everywhere just keeps on fueling my own reflections on these themes. Definitely one of my best reads this year, this book is now burned into my memory, and I have a feeling it will stay like that for a very long time.

Thank you #netgalley for the advanced copy.
Having heard such wonderful things about Celeste Ng, I had high hopes for this book and it did not disappoint. I was, literally, unable to put it down. The characterisation in Little Fires Everywhere is absolutely superb. It's a true masterclass in expertly-constructed storytelling. I cannot praise and recommend this book enough. I really felt that the issues raised regarding what a parent is, what it means to be affluent in money and affluent in spirit, and the consequences of rules/freedom were explored but not resolved. They shouldn't be resolved. They aren't in real life and this book, as a result, felt truly real.
There's a claustrophobic atmosphere in the community of Shaker Heights that is fully believable (and true to life, as my dad, who grew up in the area, relayed).
I knocked a star off because I didn't enjoy how Mia became elevated to an almost otherworldly character at the end; that felt forced. Otherwise, astounding.

Hands down Izzy wins best rebel move by a teenager.

I think this book will generate a lot of opinions and conversations, and I can guarantee the opinions will differ on a lot of the core issues raised in this book. In fact this is probably a little Molotov cocktail in the guise of an innocent little book.

When is a mother a mother and when is she not? I think it is fair to say that giving birth makes you a mother in the technical sense of the word and from a biological point of view, however not every bio mother or father is a parent.

This book wades into the murky, emotional and difficult waters of adoption, surrogacy and abortion. Ng also puts motherhood and relationships between mothers and daughters under close scrutiny.

It is a book full of controversial topics, however the author approaches all of them in a subtle non-controversial manner. There is no attempt to sway the reader one way or the other, both sides of the argument are presented in each situation. When I say both sides this includes uncomfortable facts like a rich white family creating a diverse environment and not raising a child of a transracial adoption in a colour-blind environment.

Also the presumption that financial stability is better for a child than a genetic connection or how a traumatic event can spiral into anxiety can end up voicing itself as a lifetime of criticism and dislike.

Again, I have to say that aside from the controversial topics, I also really enjoyed the way Ng didn’t flavour the soup in any way. She lets the reader pick the seasoning and the way they decide to imbibe the topics. I think the result will be an interesting variety of opinions.

This book was another recommended by John Green and after reading the synopsis I wasn’t sure it was going to be for me, but I’m glad I went for it because it is incredible!

We join the Richardsons on the morning after Izzy, the youngest daughter and oddball of the family sets fire to their home and promptly disappears. Shaker Heights is left bewildered as to what could have made Izzy do such a thing. After all, in a place of such order and comfort, what could motivate such reckless action? Little Fires Everywhere follows the events leading up to the fire, starting with the arrival of the restless artist Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl. Mrs Richardson, a morally upright servant of the community, sees potential in Mia and happily rents out their second home to her, quickly followed by an offer of a job as their housekeeper. The Warrens and the Richardsons soon become as close as if they were one family, but when Mia makes a decision that disturbs the peace of the perfect town, Mrs Richardson is determined that there will be consequences. What she doesn’t realise is that those consequences will reach far further than Mia’s doorstep.

What stood out for me most about this book is that it shines a light on the way suburban, white, middle-class, Democrat voting America really thinks. They might have four cars, two houses and a holiday home, but they’re not so different from everyone else. They give to charity, pay taxes and help out the less fortunate when they can, so that’s fair, right?! There’s no need to get involved in any radical politics or protest, no, it’s much better to keep calm and orderly. If anyone happens to disrupt that order, then heaven help them! The portrayal was eye-opening and fascinating. It does an expert job of examining how race, class and gender actually function in the small inter-personal narratives of family and community life. It raises issues that most of us would rather not think about and asks lots of important questions.

At the same time, it’s like a soap opera! There are lots of intricate intertwining stories and many cliffhangers to keep shocking the reader. The descriptions are vivid and the world is truly immersive. I was hooked throughout. It’s not specifically a young adult story, but it could be. Ample time is devoted to the teenagers of the novel and their issues are dealt with truthfully and sensitively.

The only thing stopping me from giving a perfect 10 is that I found parts of the ending a little unbelievable. It’s like the author went out of her way to give the reader the ending they wanted, rather than a realistic one, and it felt a bit jarring.

However, even that doesn’t take much away from this truly outstanding novel. It is unafraid, timely and so so necessary. Anyone with even the vaguest interest in the social order and how we interact with each other should not hesitate to pick up this book.

9.5/10

Well, this was a little different from my usual reads these days but it was a refreshing change for me. To say that it is very character driven would be an understatement and, I was so drawn into the lives of all the characters, I became totally immersed into their world. In fact, the town in which they all live is so important and indeed integral into the story, it almost becomes a character in its own right.
The story opens at the end; a fire has gutted a family home. Certain characters are watching the aftermath and conclusions are drawn to who the perpetrator of this evil act is and speculation is rife as to why. But how did we really get here is the main story and we travel back in time to before the fire and meet the wonderful cast that will take us on our subsequent journey through secrets lies and duplicitous behaviour to get to where we started.
Our story revolves around a Shaker town. At this point I did a bit of googling for background as I was initially clueless but I think it was good for me to have done so as I was in a better place to understand some of the nuances and strange (to me) ways of things that I feel were important to know to better understand the bigger picture. Especially key when faced with outsiders coming in and breaking up the relative status quo of the way things are done. The outsiders in question being artist Mia and her daughter Pearl, especially with respect to their new place in the lives of established family the Richardsons.
The keystone to the story and the flame that lights the touchpaper of the fireworks to come is that of the adoption of an abandoned Chinese baby. The spanner in the works of things is the birth mother who wants the child back. This not only divides the town but is also the catalyst for the unearthing of certain characters' pasts. Each one being drip fed in at just the right times in the ongoing story for maximum impact. As I learned more about them, my own opinions and judgements of them changed quite a bit along the way and I was very impressed with the way that the author managed to manipulate and massage my feelings and emotions throughout. It's hard to explain without qualification, which I won't do here due to spoilers, but I will just say that I totally bought every character, so real they become to me as I got very emotionally involved in pretty much every step of the way on their journeys.
There's not much else I dare to say about this book as I believe it is one best started with no preconception of what you will end up with. If you love good stories played out by fully rounded, convincing characters that will have you emoting along at every step then you could do no worse than give this a try. I'm glad I did and my thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for that chance.

I enjoyed Celeste Ng’s Everything I never told you and so I had probably quite high expectations of this book. Sadly, this book was just average. The set-up is oddly the same as before, we know something bad has happened and then the story unravels by looking back at the months leading up to the event. The characters never developed, they were all just ok. I really did not care for any of them and Shaker Heights, so much talked about that I knew as a reader I should feel the place was like a person, a character important to the narrative but it just never took off for me. A quick read I grant you that, but not a satisfying one.

In the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights lives the Richardson family: the father, Bill, is a lawyer, the mother, Elena, is a journalist, and their four children, Lexie, lively and carefree, Trip, focused on sport and girls, Moody, lonely and a bit nerdy, and Izzy, troubled and nobody in her family seems to understand her. Their normal and peaceful life is disrupted by the arrival of Mia and Pearl Warren. Mia is an artist and, along with her fifteen-year-old daughter Pearl, she has been travelling around the States until she has finally decided to settle in Shaker Heights, hoping to give a better life to her daughter. Moody and his family quickly become fond of Pearl and Mia, but the different upbringing and beliefs soon bring catastrophe in the quiet suburb.

This is a well-written, emotional, and captivating novel set in the 1990s, against the backdrop of the Clinton presidency, and in an utopian neighbourhood that reminded me of Desperate Housewives but without the murders. The characters are psychologically well-developed, flawed, and often selfish and I liked how the author managed to create characters that you can like and hate at the same time (I found myself switching sides throughout the entire novel). A novel about motherhood, families and relationships with a fresh and original plot and a few twists that will keep you glued to the page.

This novel is really difficult to describe. On the surface, it's the story of a middle class family living in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The new tenants in their rental house are a mother and daughter, Mia and Pearl, whose arrival changes everything. However, there's so much more going on than this, as the book is about community, family, secrets, parenthood, friendship and growing up.

I loved the structure of the book - that's what really drew me in after I read an extract. The story basically begins at the end, before going back to show you how everyone got to that point. It's certainly compelling, making you want to find out the secrets underlying the seemingly 'normal' and conservative lives of the affluent Richardson family. The characterisation is sympathetic and realistic and it truly felt like a peek into the lives of some interesting people.

This book is recommended if you like your fiction with intelligence and heart. It's one that will keep you thinking well after you turn the final page.

Guys. Let’s talk about Little Fires Everywhere.



This is a book that I had been hearing All the Good Things about all over the place, it was well and truly on my radar and I was 10/10 excited for its 2018 release so when Little, Brown got in touch and said they were bringing the release forward to, well, now, and would I like to take part in the blog tour I hesitated for approximately 0.0025 seconds before replying in the affirmative.



And you want to know a thing? I am so glad I did. Little Fires Everywhere is the kind of book I live for, slow and meandering and character driven and I loved it, so so hard. It’s the kind of book that whispers, quietly in your ear ‘this, this is why you love to read.’ I loved it. I want to read it again. Celeste Ng, where have you been all my life?!

So. Let’s have at it, shall we. The book’s set in a quiet Cleveland suburb, Shaker Heights, which interested me hugely, partly because I know a guy who lived in Cleveland for a while when he was a kid so there’s that (slight) geographical tie that I am always such a sucker for and partly because I’m so fascinated by these planned communities, like The Villages in Florida where you can’t be a permanent resident if you’re over 19: I am so interested in that. Ultimately though, what I found is this really clever and amazingly detailed story that made me feel so many things. It’s a book about white privilege; a subtle study of race and class as well as a story about families and secrets and motherhood and running from your past.
Set in the 1990’s (YES the 90’s baby!!) the residents of Shaker Heights are mostly blind to their own privilege, they lead these picture-perfect lives and don’t think of anything outside of their own perfect little bubble, until they are absolutely forced to. Which, of course, throughout the course of the novel, is s thing they are forced to do. They mean well, I think, mostly; they’re not bad people, they’re all just a bit…naïve and as you watch them unravel, watch the way the operate, their views of good and bad and right and wrong, you find yourself examining not only their choices but somehow your own. It might be set 20 years ago but wow it’s relevant. So relevant.


‘Nobody sees race here’ one of the Richardson girls says and she really doesn’t mean to be dick, she’s so earnest and so genuine, she thinks this is what makes Shaker Heights so great because everyone knows the best way to prove you’re not racist is to pretend like race isn’t even a thing, and even as you’re face-palming so hard you find you want to hug her as much as you want to shake her til she wakes up because it’s she’s grown up in this bubble of a life where you’re fined if you don’t mow your lawn and you can’t put your wheelie bin on the street and life is exactly as it should be – except, for this character, Lexie, it all of a sudden isn’t and watching her story unfold is both touching and fascinating in and of itself – and that’s just the way it is. Race doesn’t exist in Shaker Heights, and nor does class and ain’t that just grand. Not so much Lexie, because look around: you’re all White and you’re all rich.



The juxtaposition of the two families who drive this story, the Richardson’s who embody all Shaker Heights wants to be, and Mia and her daughter Pearl, who are open-minded free spirits, the like of which these people have never really come across is so clever and so well thought out, and so so honest. It all comes to a head when it turns out that a rich friend of the Richardson’s is trying to adopt the baby of a poor Chinese friend of Mia’s. The whole custody battle divides Shaker Heights - when asked how they plan to keep the baby connected to her Chinese family the potential adoptive Mother says ‘Pearl of the Orient is one of our favourite restaurants. We try to take her there once a month.’ - and God, it’s awkward but also, I don’t know how to explain, it’s just….it’s really interesting ok. It’s so clever and it’s such a good character study.

I love a good character driven book and this is exactly that. Not a lot happens, it’s not fast paced or overly dramatic, and you feel like every word has been very carefully chosen, not to smack you in the chest in an obvious manner but to quietly worm its way under your skin and make you think. It’s my favourite kind of storytelling. There are differing perspectives, neither painted as right or wrong but both demonstrating both of those things; all the flaws are clearly marked but so are the ways in which these people deserve your sympathies. You’re not led to any particular conclusion, you’re just sort of invited in to look at these people and this series of events and left to feel about that as you may (except of course there’s only really one way to feel, the beauty being that Ng lets you get there on your own. Show don’t tell at it’s very best). It’s all about the characters and I LOVE IT. Seriously I can’t even remember the last book I read that did character development this well. It does its job, it quietly packs a powerful punch and it’s also beautifully beautifully written.

Also, this part, which made me want to call my bestie and just read it aloud to her:


To a parent, your child wasn't just a person, your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once. You could see it every time you looked at her; layered in her face was the baby she'd been and the child she'd become and the adult she would grow up to be and you saw them all simultaneously, like a 3-D image. It made your head spin. It was like a place you could take refuge, if you knew how to get in. And each time you left it, each time your child passed out of your sight, you feared you might never be able to return to that place again.




Basically. READ THIS BOOK.

A great read, the interweaving of the 2 main families both from such differing backgrounds and with different agendas. One well to do, apparently "ideal family" with varying ages of teenagers of both genders, and well educated professional parents under one roof, and the other with a very talented and artistic Mother and teenage daughter with an intriguing past that they have been running from for a long time.

This is one of my favourite books of the year. The characters are wonderfully written. It is a character driven book, but the plot is still exciting and thrilling enough that you won’t want to put it down.

The Richardson family seem like a typical upper class family, living a perfect life, especially to Pearl. She befriends them and spends more time with them than at her own house. However, as the book begins at an awful moment for the family and we then go back to find out how/why it happened, we know things aren’t as perfect as they seem.

The mysterious past of Pearl and her mother are especially interesting and I love the way this is slowly revealed.