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A review by inkerly
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
4.0
I initially picked up this book in excitement for the Hulu show adaptation of the same name. I thought that this would be a murder mystery or some thriller novel. Instead what I got was a slow suburban burner that has me conflicted on whether it’s a book that lacks substance, or is quite possibly the newest classic of the 21st century.
I say this because there are many odd things about this book. It doesn’t read like your typical Bestseller. There’s no action-driven plot. None of the characters really have a goal or are driven by any purpose (except for maybe the mothers of the story). And subsequently none of the characters really pull you in. There are many characters that just aren’t “likeable” or easy to sympathize with. And that’s ok.
But in a way that’s what makes this book beautiful as it is. Everyone seems like a bystander. Living in a world and society under the studious lens of us, the reader. Like the curious 8-year old Scout Finch of To Kill A Mockingbird, we are the curious observers of this quiet flawed Shaker society, wondering which X character does Y, why rules aren’t questioned when a human life is literally being held at stake, and so on. And left to wonder what the character’s actions, and the realities of them, say about ourselves.
How the only thing that differentiates one character’s fate from another is what class they were born into. And how the very thing that connects each of them together, ever small, grows to ginormous proportions by the end of the book, a connection that spools itself like a thick web, thicker than any web of the human imagination.
I think this review was hard for me because as I said before about the oddities of the book, in total transparency I didn’t feel like up until the last third of the book, it held my interest or had quantifiable substance. But as I read through, and finally basked in my thoughts on the ending, I reflected and saw this Harper Lee-esque vibe within this book, that made me appreciate the classical yet eerily mundane storytelling. A technique I think is actually brilliant now. Because if the events that take place in this story incense you, but read as if it were another regular day in Joe Schmoe society, what does that say about our propensity for justice?
If I could put all my thoughts together about this book—the writing, the subtle yet thought provoking lessons on privilege and the bond of motherhood I would. So I’ll leave with this thought: Little Fires Everywhere is a book that makes you think, if slightly, about a world that on the surface seems so fragile, and underneath, layer by layer reveals a shard of ourselves that makes fact read even stranger than fiction.
I say this because there are many odd things about this book. It doesn’t read like your typical Bestseller. There’s no action-driven plot. None of the characters really have a goal or are driven by any purpose (except for maybe the mothers of the story). And subsequently none of the characters really pull you in. There are many characters that just aren’t “likeable” or easy to sympathize with. And that’s ok.
But in a way that’s what makes this book beautiful as it is. Everyone seems like a bystander. Living in a world and society under the studious lens of us, the reader. Like the curious 8-year old Scout Finch of To Kill A Mockingbird, we are the curious observers of this quiet flawed Shaker society, wondering which X character does Y, why rules aren’t questioned when a human life is literally being held at stake, and so on. And left to wonder what the character’s actions, and the realities of them, say about ourselves.
How the only thing that differentiates one character’s fate from another is what class they were born into. And how the very thing that connects each of them together, ever small, grows to ginormous proportions by the end of the book, a connection that spools itself like a thick web, thicker than any web of the human imagination.
I think this review was hard for me because as I said before about the oddities of the book, in total transparency I didn’t feel like up until the last third of the book, it held my interest or had quantifiable substance. But as I read through, and finally basked in my thoughts on the ending, I reflected and saw this Harper Lee-esque vibe within this book, that made me appreciate the classical yet eerily mundane storytelling. A technique I think is actually brilliant now. Because if the events that take place in this story incense you, but read as if it were another regular day in Joe Schmoe society, what does that say about our propensity for justice?
If I could put all my thoughts together about this book—the writing, the subtle yet thought provoking lessons on privilege and the bond of motherhood I would. So I’ll leave with this thought: Little Fires Everywhere is a book that makes you think, if slightly, about a world that on the surface seems so fragile, and underneath, layer by layer reveals a shard of ourselves that makes fact read even stranger than fiction.