It is not often that I read a 300+ page book in a single sitting, but "Little Fires Everywhere" is so suspenseful that I hardly noticed the day slip away. Who knew a suburban fire could unravel into explorations of the existential tenets of motherhood and greater human inter-connectivity? But here we are.

Celeste Ng is an excellent storyteller. As an author she is great at pacing and playing with perspective. What really drives the narrative though, is how well Ng is able to craft characters. While there were a number of emotionally charged conflicts that escalated throughout the novel, I do not feel like there were any true villains. There were certainly characters I profoundly disagreed with whose actions I found to be toxic and self-serving, but Ng still made them vulnerably human and I could not hate them.

Ng essentially explains her approach to building characters (perhaps even lightly poking through the fourth wall) when she has Mr. Richardson reflect on his wife's feelings of a bitter custody battle:

"For her it was simple: Bebe Chow had been a poor mother; Linda McCullough had been a good one. One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on" (269)

Despite all that is great, there is no denying much of the conflict could have been resolved if characters had talked to each other, instead of indignantly seeking moral validation for their own perspectives. While this does speak truth to life, it is no less frustrating to read. People are complex and want to be understood, but this cannot happen without communication.

Overall, I would still definitely recommend this one, and I look forward to more by Celeste Ng.