Review of “Little Fires Everywhere”

I highly recommend the book “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng. I love books about the trials and tribulations of suburban life. I also love books that weave a story around a strong woman and how she reacts to what life throws at her. This story gives us two women reacting, Mia Warren and Elena Richardson, and how they react to life and each other. The majority of the story takes place in an idyllic suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1990s.

With these two women, author Celeste Ng compares and contrasts Mia’s and Elena’s reactions to life as well as the effects of their respective upbringings. During this interesting comparison, both woman face many trials and tribulations (some ironic some not so) with respect to their families and careers. The story gives us enough of a back story to show that life seemed to limit the opportunities for Mia to pursue her dreams, while life offered Elena every opportunity to live out her dreams.

I appreciated the one major defining event (amongst all the little fires everywhere), I call the “Big Fire”, and the reaction each woman had were unexpected to me as I thought I knew the characters. I also appreciated enough of a story for me to reflect on how each woman’s flaws and strengths contributed to make the defining event happen.

The setting of the book is a suburb in Cleveland, Ohio, and the story gives us insight into this real-life community and Elena. I had never heard of Shaker Heights before, and the story paints a picture of the efforts put forth to create a perfect community for people to live and grow. The conclusion and reminder for me was that no matter the good intentions for a perfect community, for some perfection may in reality be only a façade. Within a community of manicured upbringing, lawns and homes, people are creating fires and battling issues daily.

I recommend this book. I liked the contract and comparison of how Mia and Elena encountered and dealt with little fires in their own lives and with each other. I felt the ending was satisfactory, and showed the character of each woman and that character is not subject to one’s background or community.

Me: I am Diane M. Spolar and I live in Willowbrook, Illinois (a suburb outside of Chicago) with my husband, son and cat. I am a CPA by day, and a reader by night and on the weekends. I am a lifelong lover of books.