Little Fires Everywhere

Non-Spoiler Review:

This was excellent.

The story focuses on two families: The Richardsons and Mia and Pearl Warren. The Richardsons, in particularly Mrs Richardson, have always followed the rules of their suburban neighbourhood in Shaker Heights, but they all feel inexplicably drawn to Mia and Pearl Warren, their new tenants. Their relationships with this mother and daughter change all of them forever. However, when a custody battle over a child erupts into public life in their community Mia and Mrs Richardson find themselves on opposing sides, and what Mrs Richardson does next as she dives into Mia's past changes the families forever.

The story was unforgettable with amazing characters and in depth character studies that were never boring, as a reader you always kept sucked into the novel as you weren't sure what was going to be revealed next.

Every choice the characters made we intertwined and everyone felt important, so you never grew bored when one chapter focused on a character you hadn't known a lot about before that point. Everyone was unique and fascinating, but not equally so - arguably the most fascinating characters are Mia Warren and Mrs Richardson who acts almost FOILs to each other.

The book brings forth discourse on a great number of topics but never tells you how you should feel about them nor never hints at what the author thinks. It's a book of choices, and how those choices impact people and their lives.

Spoiler Review:

WHAT A RIDE.

I wasn't expecting to love this as much as I did, I was hoping it was going to be good due to all the hype surrounding this - but I wasn't expecting this to be my next five star read. I read this for ‘Asian Readathon' and I'm glad I'm partaking in this readathon otherwise I'm not sure I would have been drawn to this book otherwise.

Whilst this book is really a character study of all the characters in it, it really focuses and does a deep dive on Mrs Richardson and Mia Warren in particular. These two characters act almost as FOILs to each other, and whilst they're not perfect FOILs, it was interesting to read about the differences and the growing similarities between the two, and what they could have learnt from each other. Mia Warren at the start lets her her heart rule her, whereas Mrs Richardson allows rules of society to control her, however as the book progresses Mia begins to allow rules to control her actions (e.g. finally telling Pearl the truth) and Mrs Richardson allows her heart to begin to rule her.

It was largely a study of motherhood and the sacrifices mothers make for their children throughout their lives - Mia gave up hers but later sacrificed the life she loved for Pearl, and Mrs Richardson sacrificed a career and her name and later promised to sacrifice it all for Izzy. Perhaps the read was so compelling for that reason, as people often comment the greatest force known to man is a mother's love. It was also explored through the custody case surrounding May Ling, surrogacy and abortion and was always handled with the greatest care and respect.

The other characters didn't suffer because of the focus on Mia, Mrs Richardson and motherhood however, and the children all felt unique and distinct. Their stories were told expertly as well and covered a whole range of topics from sex to unrequited love.

Overall this was fantastic and I'm not sure what else to tell you other than to pick it up!

Full review: https://moonlitbooks.home.blog/2020/05/11/littlefireseverywherereview/