Little Fires Everywhere
By Celeste Ng
Publication Year: 2017
Type: Fiction
Genre: contemporary
Read on 2018-06-30
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2018 Reading Survey ➞
★★★★☆
Mid-way through the book I thought I hated it - I was getting majorly bogged down and annoyed by the character-driven plot, all the petty squabbles, the mess of an ensemble cast. But in the end, I see how small a sacrifice the occasionally tedious set-up was to the glorious extended denouement, wherein Ng closes each of the circles she sets in motion.
I’ve always disliked mysteries that ended with a single clever solution (Agatha Christie and Robert Galbraith come to mind). It’s like, every little clue is set specifically to lead you to a concise one-liner, which, once you get to it, feels just profoundly disappointing and empty. Reality is never so simple or clear as a to be summed up in one line. Ng delves headfirst into the mess that is intimate, intersecting social relationships. She cuts deep on specific issues of interracial adoption, “color blindness” and white savior complex, adolescent motherhood and a feminist biology (? I don’t really know how to phrase this idea) - to name just a few - with incredible sensitivity and clarity. The characters that deliver these ideas are so lifelike and complex it is easy to imagine them as real people, experiencing these complexities in real life. Just to use Izzy as an example - she plays into the trope of “angst teen girl just wants to leave her privileged suburban life” and yet Ng is such a competent and sensitive writer that she breathes life into the trope while simultaneously deconstructing all its facets, from the mother-daughter relationship, to wealthy suburban neighbourhood as site of class/race/gender friction, etc.
Celeste Ng is an incredibly talented writer to deliver something so clear and poignant, yet complex and layered. This isn’t a great point to close on but I really want Reese Witherspoon’s production company to adapt this into the racially diverse, feminist, award-winning movie it deserves.
