A review by imme_van_gorp
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Oh my god, this was so incredibly good! This book had me completely gripped from beginning to end. The writing was so engaging in a succinct yet powerful way, and the characters were woven so perfectly into the story, I simply could not stop reading for even a second! The pacing was also done in the exact right way. The book never gave too many details that would make the story start to feel like it dragged, but instead it always managed to say exactly what needed to be said for the reader to understand what was going on, what it meant, and how it must feel for everyone involved. Overall, it was such strong writing and I instantly fell in love with it. 

I am struggling to provide a summary of this book considering it tells so many little stories of many different characters. I hardly think it’s possible to choose one of these stories and point towards it saying: “This. This is what the book is about.” Moreover, so many of these stories were more subtle, never fully fleshed out or even acknowledged, that it would be very hard to describe them in my own words. So really, if I were to attempt a summary, I honestly wouldn’t know where to look or where to begin, and the end-result would be incomplete and wrong anyway. 

That said, I do want to point out that this book genuinely made me feel so many emotions! I had very strong opinions on all of the characters, of all the things that happened in the past, present and future, but also of the social issues that were raised. 

For example, I genuinely felt so much pain for the McCulloughs; I think what happened to them embodies the worst fears of any parent thinking about adopting or of those who have already adopted a child. To live with the fear that your child can be taken away like that… Just because someone thinks they have a claim on a child they abandoned due to some irrelevant blood-connection. It’s devastating and terrible and unjust. A parent is someone who takes care of their child, who nurses them, who loves them, who provides for them, who will never ever think of leaving them. Being a mother is more than giving birth to someone.

It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a <i>mother</i>? Was it biology alone, or was it love?

Although I had intense feelings about them all, I think there was really only one character I truly felt an immense dislike towards, and I am willing to bet not many readers will think the same on this as me: The person I had a distinct distaste towards was Mia. Her ungrateful, fanciful and irresponsible attitude bothered me, but it was mostly her hypocrisy that made my skin crawl. 
First of all, I genuinely believe Mia was a bad mother. I don’t care how she tried to justify it, whether it was due to her “artistic spirit” or her young age, but she never ever did what was best for her daughter in those early years. She never chose to take care of her daughter properly, and instead continued to choose to live the life of a starving artist, as if she didn’t have a whole child depending on her! She dragged that child from place to place, never staying somewhere for more than a few months, never letting her daughter set up roots anywhere, forcing her to be forever lonely and homeless. 
And really, this would be enough reason for me to dislike Mia, but it was her superior attitude, despite her own many flaws, that distinctly bothered me. She acted like she was a great mother, a great person, this pinnacle of wisdom and goodness, when she was anything but. She was aimless, she was irresponsible, she was selfish, but, like I said earlier, she was also insanely hypocritical. She had a very strong opinion on the adoption case of the McCulloughs (her own actions even being the sole cause for why Linda and Mark now had to fight to keep their adopted child), and she argued this by saying that a child should be raised by her “real” mother and that the “real” mother deserved to raise her child, but she never, not even once, mentioned (to herself or anyone else) the very real fact that she stole her own child away from her father. Did she simply think this sentiment does not apply to fathers? Is she truly that unfair and cruel? Because it’s important to note that her daughter’s father desperately wanted to raise this child, but Mia just took her from him; she stole his child. And she never thought she did a single thing wrong. The hypocrisy! It baffled me.  

And yet here was Mia, causing poor Linda such trauma, as if she hadn’t been through enough, as if Mia were any kind of example of how to mother. Dragging her fatherless child from place to place, scraping by on menial jobs, justifying it by insisting to herself — by insisting to everyone — she was making Art. Probing other people’s business with her grimy hands. Stirring up trouble. Heedlessly throwing sparks. Mrs. Richardson seethed, and deep inside her, the hot speck of fury that had been carefully banked within her burst into flame. Mia did whatever she wanted, Mrs. Richardson thought, and what would result? Heartbreak for her oldest friend. Chaos for everyone. You can’t just do what you want, she thought. Why should Mia get to, when no one else did?

Of course, I also had very strong opinions on all of the other characters and plot points; some positive, some not, and some… unsure, but I won’t bore anyone with going into details about all that. 
It doesn’t really matter what my own specific opinions were anyway, the only thing that really matters is that this is the type of book that invokes those strong emotions about its characters and its plots. I felt everything while reading this: indignation, sympathy, suspense, anxiousness, endearment, unsurety, pity, all of it… And isn’t that the best kind of book? A book that makes you feel intensely and makes you form strong opinions about its content? For me it is. And that’s why I loved this!