Reviews

Celeste has a talent for undoing me. She captures the feeling of life’s little happenings building up to create a seemingly inescapable fate. Generations of expectations and over corrections culminating and boiling over.

lue_moon's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is a beautiful portrait of family relationships and grief. I really enjoyed the back and forth in time and the way things were slowly revealed. I found myself resonating with aspects of each of the siblings' experiences in particular: the way Nath felt overshadowed and overlooked; the pressure to try to hold a family together placed on Lydia; the quite, unseen, observation of Hannah.

And oof, this book is the kind of sad that is so so beautiful.

To know that Lydia was trying to start things anew, believing that all she needed to do was kick and try. To know all they was trying to do was trust in herself and prove that she can exist on her own terms, and then to be met with the void. And for none of the family to ever really know how much she was trying to start over. And how much she, in the end, allowed space for her family to start anew, to break out of the patterns they were stuck in. She accomplished what she had been hoping for her family, in the most tragic of ways.

Be prepared for tears if you are someone who often cries at books.

Content Warnings

jrosek5's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

kitkat962's review against another edition

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4.0

This is the first audiobook that I actually finished, hence, my review could have been different if I read instead of listen.
I don't like this as much as "Little fires everywhere", but it was a good read on identity and family, expectation and growth, fitting in and standing out, the subjects on which I'm interested. Ng's writing is excellent, my heart clenched at the scence where the father received the autopsy result. I also love the open endings, where each of the family members realize their roles in Lydia's death.
That being said, there is a certain lack of nuance when it comes to interracial marriage. Given the setting in late 90s, it's acceptable, though dated.

Personal note, I find myself in the women of the novel, from Marilyn, with her dream shattered and replaced with a domestic life, Lydia, with the pressure to stand out, Hannah, longing to be seen and heard. To me, Hannah herself is the ending of the book. She is free from expectation, to do whatever she chooses to, and she is the hope for the future.

arialuciia's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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