There are a lot of layers involved in Ng’s award winning novel and Little Fires Everywhere employs one of my least favorite tricks- starting in the present with the climatic event before restarting at the true beginning of the story. Mrs. Richardson, a wealthy journalist in the Utopian town of Shaker Heights, wakes up to her house in flames; she was sleeping in after a rough day involving her tenant leaving the apartment she rented and the reader is treated to the events that led to both the […]
Suburban Page Turner
Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere has been on a lot of lists since it was published so I was excited to get my hands on it earlier this week. The novel is about so many things, really, but generally tells the tale of a family in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the Richardsons, and how they are each affected in strong and different ways by their tenants, Mia and Pearl Warren. The Warrens are nothing like the Richardsons have ever known in their progressive but rigidly-planned town, […]
Read it before the movie comes out!
I found this one a little predictable, as in, I guessed the “surprises” ending pretty quickly. But that in NO WAY detracted from my enjoyment of the novel, which is full of secrets and twists along the way. The book also raises some pretty interesting questions, especially about adoption and ethnicity. Little Fires Everywhere starts with Izzy Richardson burning down her family’s house, and backs up from there. The Richardsons are a wealthy family living in the planned community of Shaker Heights. Then Mia and […]
What do you do when books have the exact same plot?
So three books came out this year that deal with trans-racial adoption…and somehow they all have the exact same plot. And two have the exact same ending. So that’s annoying. This book is good, mostly. It’s hard to deal with a topical topic and and then have that topic explored in almost exactly the same terms as other books. This book is well-written and the main plotline is interesting and well-handled. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Ann Patchett, domestic-ish, dealing with […]
Everything That I Never Told You For No Reason Other Than to be Super Frustrating
I am sure that Celeste Ng is a nice person, and I am glad that she has found success as an author, but I did not like this book. In fact, talking about this book makes me downright angry. If I had to describe in one word my thoughts about this book (which I will do next week at my local library book club, because that’s how we roll) I would say “tiresome.” I would also cheat and add two more words “emotionally manipulative.” I […]
A family drama that left me a little cold
Family drama is a hit-or-miss genre for me, same with mystery. When I picked up Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You at my community college’s book sale, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I *was* happy to support the English department for a dollar. I have seen a few reviews around Cannonball Read, and I was interested to see for myself what the book would entail. Lydia Lee disappears in the middle of the night in her 1970s suburban Ohio town, and is […]