Wow! This is one of the best fictional books I have ever read.

Just wow!

I loved this book! “Little Fires Everywhere” is superbly well-written, there is character development, the unfolding of the story is done with excellent precision, and there are important themes that float around this book too. It’s got the total package!

The story is a contrasting of two families in a planned community called Shaker Heights. It is one of the first of its kind and it is populated by the middle-upper class. It is a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. It is known for its rules… for everything. In this perfect suburban setting in the 1990s, everything seems to be just perfect. Until it’s not.

The two families contrasted in the book are The Richardsons, a nuclear family with a mom and a dad, and four children, two girls and two boys. Then, enter a single mom and her daughter.

Mia Warren is an photography artist who moves every time she finishes a project. Her daughter Pearl has never known what it’s like to stay in one place for more than a school year. They get all of their belongings from thrift stores, second-hand, and usually abandon whatever they collected the next move to a new town.

The Richardsons are very wealthy. They rent out a duplex nearby to their mcmansion to an Asian handyman and a revolving door of tenants who seems to never stay more than a year. Mrs. Richardson sees it as her prerogative to find tenants that she can “help” by offering inexpensive rent to give back to those less fortunate to them. She is a reporter in Shaker Heights local newspaper. Her husband is a successful lawyer in the city, a partner at his firm. Each of the four Richardson children show an interest in Pearl, who is an aberration to them because of the vastly different upbringings they experienced.

The themes explored in this book include adoption, abortion, parenthood especially motherhood, and then white privilege and minority rights. I don’t want to get too much into themes so I don’t give anything away, but there is so much to chew on in this book. I loved it! I want to read it again… soon.

I highly recommend this book! 5 Stars!

Get a copy of “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng on Amazon here.