In the fiction novel Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, artist Mia Warren and her young daughter, Pearl, have recently moved to the idyllic suburb of Shaker Heights. There, they become entangled with the Richardsons - the epitome of refined planned community members - when the Richardsons rent out one of their properties to the Warrens. When Mia’s unshakeable sense of self leads her into “interfering” in a matter Ms. Richardson would have rather she stayed out of, Ms. Richardson takes matters into her own hands and begins digging into Mia’s past. What she finds is rather unexpected and has consequences not just for the makeup of the Warren family, but for the Richardsons as well.
I enjoyed this novel, though I thought it was rather slow at times. I mostly listened to it as an audiobook while doing something else, and I think otherwise I would not have been able to finish it. The description of Mia’s artistic growth was compelling as well as the development of the relationships between different characters. Though while reading the book it felt like there were often long tangents that the author went on, most of these tangents ended up tying together pretty well at the end which was satisfying to read. I would give it three out of five stars.