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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this cover to cover, which I really don’t do very often anymore! This would be a great book club title — lots to discuss. Thank you, Mary, for sending it my way! (4.5 Stars)
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
When artist-vagabond and single mother Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl move to the meticulous, picture-perfect town of Shaker Heights, the quiet and quaint life the Richardson family has always known is shaken to its core, exposing them in ways that surprise even themselves. This idyllic community, not unlike the Richardson family, is carefully planned and lived according to a certain kind of order: good and bad, black and white. Elena Richardson considers herself a benevolent do-gooder, happy to help those less fortunate than herself, and offers the little Warren family a lease on the Richardson’s rental at a bargain price. What Elena doesn’t plan on is how these two families will become intertwined through tragedy and complicated circumstance, turning the Richardson’s clean black and white, by the book life, to a landscape of vastly complicated gray areas.
Celeste Ng has a way of drawing the reader into her characters’ lives in the most intimate way. We love them and hate them. We care about what happens to them. We are excited by their successes and incensed at the injustices that befall them. Likewise, her landscapes are ones that seem all-too familiar to us, even those portraits that we ourselves may never have actually experienced on our own. We feel like we’ve been to Shaker Heights, or somewhere similar, as if we’ve walked its streets and sat in its parks. We feel the tightness of the constricting cage of a tight-knit community with a long, proud history. We feel like we’ve met the Richardsons, their neighbors, the women at the local Chinese restaurant, and those flighty souls that lived within its gray corners and along its sharp edges.
Little Fires Everywhere is really about how everything – and everyone - is never as it or they may seem on the surface. Life is complicated, multi-layered, and nobody is pure and simple and evenly good, even if they’ve spent their entire lives trying to build a narrative for themselves that leads the world to believe that they are. Nothing is quite black and white, but rather a tapestry of grays. It is also about how people, whether we plan it or not, build connections that ripple with consequences that affect not only individuals, but entire communities.
Ng has written an emotional story that is complicated but compelling in a way that induces the reader to take sides, to empathize, and to expand their own preconceptions and biases.
Celeste Ng has a way of drawing the reader into her characters’ lives in the most intimate way. We love them and hate them. We care about what happens to them. We are excited by their successes and incensed at the injustices that befall them. Likewise, her landscapes are ones that seem all-too familiar to us, even those portraits that we ourselves may never have actually experienced on our own. We feel like we’ve been to Shaker Heights, or somewhere similar, as if we’ve walked its streets and sat in its parks. We feel the tightness of the constricting cage of a tight-knit community with a long, proud history. We feel like we’ve met the Richardsons, their neighbors, the women at the local Chinese restaurant, and those flighty souls that lived within its gray corners and along its sharp edges.
Little Fires Everywhere is really about how everything – and everyone - is never as it or they may seem on the surface. Life is complicated, multi-layered, and nobody is pure and simple and evenly good, even if they’ve spent their entire lives trying to build a narrative for themselves that leads the world to believe that they are. Nothing is quite black and white, but rather a tapestry of grays. It is also about how people, whether we plan it or not, build connections that ripple with consequences that affect not only individuals, but entire communities.
Ng has written an emotional story that is complicated but compelling in a way that induces the reader to take sides, to empathize, and to expand their own preconceptions and biases.
dark
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Life isn't black and white, most of us live in the gray. This book explores many perspectives and lives, but particularly the life of a woman who is comfortable living in the gray and a woman who can only fathom life and all its intricacies being in black and white.
But life's not so simple. Things are seldom what they seem and choices can't necessarily be viewed as right or wrong, good or bad. This book isn't easy, it's uncomfortable, it's heart-wrenching, it's clever, funny, dynamic, eye opening, and even sweet. One of the most difficult parts about this book is that it opens questions that have no real answer, not a definitive one that is. But that's also what makes this book so touching and real; it's what makes it so compelling.
This novel will keep me thinking about it for weeks, at least, I'm sure. And whenever a difficult situation occurs, I have no doubt that this book will come back and settle right in the forefront of mind. Celeste Ng constructed this story and its characters with such skill. I have nothing but praise for her style of writing. It makes you question your own perspectives and decision making. I can see myself returning to this book and I look forward to reading her first book.
Also since I listened to the audio book I have to say that I loved Jennifer Lim's narration.
But life's not so simple. Things are seldom what they seem and choices can't necessarily be viewed as right or wrong, good or bad. This book isn't easy, it's uncomfortable, it's heart-wrenching, it's clever, funny, dynamic, eye opening, and even sweet. One of the most difficult parts about this book is that it opens questions that have no real answer, not a definitive one that is. But that's also what makes this book so touching and real; it's what makes it so compelling.
This novel will keep me thinking about it for weeks, at least, I'm sure. And whenever a difficult situation occurs, I have no doubt that this book will come back and settle right in the forefront of mind. Celeste Ng constructed this story and its characters with such skill. I have nothing but praise for her style of writing. It makes you question your own perspectives and decision making. I can see myself returning to this book and I look forward to reading her first book.
Also since I listened to the audio book I have to say that I loved Jennifer Lim's narration.
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think to many people this is fantastic. But there was too much baby stuff. And that’s mostly my fault for not paying attention to what I was listening to. Or chose to listen to. This book was well written, but from there the plot felt long winded. I didn’t car to much for the middle portion about the battle of custody. It felt fast. I understand racial complexities and the world we lived in. But I didn’t care for much that was happening. The end also felt like too much was left out.
I DNFed it at 10%
I came across a Tiktok of someone saying they stopped reading because the authors were/are treating readers like they're stupid, and that's all I could think about while reading this book.
When I first started reading I was getting into it. A mystery with multiple suspects in a family? Yes please!... then chapter two happened. There's a lot of writing in this book that's just extra information that could have been omitted. While I don't mind a lot of detail to describe people and places or what's going on, a lot of the detail felt like filler. Just something to put on the pages to make the book longer. There was no room for me to make up a picture in my mind while reading because it was described completely leaving no room for my own imagination. I'm not ashamed to say that I skipped over a lot of the writing when it became too monotonous. There were parts that made me roll my eyes, I know that the author was trying to show how upper class the Richardsons were and how "poor" Mia and Pearl were, but it felt like they were trying to force it down my throat.
Ultimately, I was bored out of my mind and decided that I wasn't going to force myself to read it anymore than I already had.
I came across a Tiktok of someone saying they stopped reading because the authors were/are treating readers like they're stupid, and that's all I could think about while reading this book.
When I first started reading I was getting into it. A mystery with multiple suspects in a family? Yes please!... then chapter two happened. There's a lot of writing in this book that's just extra information that could have been omitted. While I don't mind a lot of detail to describe people and places or what's going on, a lot of the detail felt like filler. Just something to put on the pages to make the book longer. There was no room for me to make up a picture in my mind while reading because it was described completely leaving no room for my own imagination. I'm not ashamed to say that I skipped over a lot of the writing when it became too monotonous. There were parts that made me roll my eyes,
Spoiler
like making Mrs. Richardson seem like this giving, charitable saint of a woman who was renting to people "Who deserved it".Ultimately, I was bored out of my mind and decided that I wasn't going to force myself to read it anymore than I already had.