Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

 

I chanced upon the show on Amazon Prime a few years ago and I just could not stop watching as one episode rolled into the other. The show is a book adaptation of the novel by the above mentioned author and is brilliant. You could see through the emotions without really spelling it out. 

Having heard of the myth that movies don't do justice to books, I had to read or listen to the book to make that judgement. Would the book be better than the televised series. The draft of this post has stayed on my blog since 2022, I realize!

Little Fires Everywhere [LFE] is all about Motherhood and every possible emotion that this status brings to women - Hyped. Overrated. Deep. Intense. Fearless. Fearsome. Perfection. Flawless. Helplessness. 

LFE to me was mostly about strong mothers - two main characters and two sub characters. 

Let's meet the Richardsons. Wealthy, well read, well settled, well known. The Richardsons have four kids - Trip, Lexi, Moody and Izzie. Their lives are like clock work. Their day to day activities, their food habits, their dressing styles are pretty much documented and followed to the T. Or expected to be followed. And what is not followed, does not go down well with Mrs Richardson. The Richardsons are long time residents of the poshest locality in Ohio - the Shaker Heights. Mrs Richardson is a journalist. She always wanted to become well known world wide, but she would have to make do with her community-wide fame. Life's choices! Her husband is a lawyer. 

Then there is Mia Warren. Single mother. Artist. On the go. Living a life full of secrets. Her daughter, Pearl is mature, brilliant, understanding and well mannered. To gain these qualities, do you in turn trade in with the innocence of childhood or do you start understanding the hardships of life way too early or do you simply not question the situation?  These things will be questioned further on in the story. 

The story opens with the scene of the Richardson home engulfed in fire. You can imagine what that would have meant for Mrs Richardson. Her dreams and hard work, her status and her pride all gone up in flames. Supposedly orchestrated by her daughter Izzie. But why would you burn down your own home?!

The story then unfolds to the previous eleven months of how Mia and Pearl came to live in Shaker Heights, how Mrs Richardson becomes the generous land lady and how the kids get along until many small stories spark up the bonfire.

Touching upon so many topics like racism and upbringing of children, morality and all that jazz, this book is beautifully written. The story has so much to look forward to. I listened to the audio version and I just had to get to the bottom of it to see if the movie was anything like the book. I have no complaints whatsoever. The movie has a few scenes that add dramatic value and the book has many other passages that delve in to the psyche of the characters. Highly recommend the book and if you do get to see the series, watch it. The star cast is brilliant. I am so so glad, I read/listened to this book to ensure I didn't miss out on anything. 

PS: Sparks Notes & Lit Charts has this whole plot analysis that you might be interested to read.