Little Fires Everywhere

A wonderful slice-of-life book that spends a good amount slowly setting up the scene in order to break it apart into polaroid-like fragments. It's a metaphor for how the book itself is written: with one perspective, then others building atop each other in a mishmash of a collage. No one will ever truly be aware of how one photograph connects to the other, not even the one who put them together. Having to be at peace with not receiving closure in the ways one would want.

The writing style reminded me of what you might find in a fictional memoir. The characters were all alive, even if nothing was centred on them (as in, the side characters were breathing too). Everyone is a grey area, everyone has their reasons and a lot are justified and a lot aren't, including the darker side of their decisions. There were a lot of parts that spoke to me; I appreciated the subtlety but blunt refusal to relent with which a lot of “small town” micro-aggressions were written. Nothing about this didn't feel real, and that's so rare to find with literature in general.

Part of me almost wanted the little fires to be caused by something or someone else. But in a way, the “culprit” being given away early, and the rest of the novel more so exploring what that means, is more fitting of the narrative. Another metaphor as to how some of us get tightly closed up with our fear and others set a literal match to it to start over. Still, I would definitely recommend this novel to others and also re-read it, which is a rare thing for me to say.