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horrorbutch 's review for:
Little Fires Everywhere
by Celeste Ng
Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
4.5 Stars
This book is a true masterpiece of writing. A slow-paced very character-based masterpiece. All the characters in this book felt incredibly real, even if they were not people I could easily relate too. All of them had their struggles and problems, their background stories that related to them, their quirks and weird habits, which made all of them feel so incredibly alive. At times I felt as if I was standing right next to the characters, watching them up close and personal.
The book starts with the Richardson house. Several small fires have been lit in it and their youngest child Izzy, the rebel, is gone. Temporarily, her siblings think. She realized that she went to far this time, setting the house ablaze and decided to take some time out.
From that moment, the story jumps back in time and we are told the story of artist Mia and her daughter Pearl moving in and how their lives start to intertwine with the Richardson household. Both families influence each other. And the story goes even further back in time, telling the story of everybody and explaining their motivations and reasons for doing what they do.
Despite all of these different relationships, at the core of this book is only one. The relationship between a mother and her child. We are told stories about all kinds of mothers. And one of the main strands of the book is the question what one needs to be a mother in the custody case that divides Shaker. A young, poor Chinese-American mother left her child on the doorstep of a fire station after her boyfriend left her in the town she moved for him, where she is unable to find work and feed the child. A local white, rich family that had been looking to adopt a child for ages are overjoyed. But after the birth mother gets back to her feet and finds a job she just wants her child back. And now the question is what makes someone a mother. Is it the possibility to give a child everything they could want in material riches and a loving family with two parents, or is it the love of a birth mother that would do everything for her child?
Another fascinating relationship was the one between Izzy and her mother. Mrs. Richardson had nearly lost her when she was a baby and thus always was a bit more attentive to her than to her other children. When Izzy pushed for her freedom Mrs. Richardson feared that, until her worry for her child turned into disdain for the unruly daughter she raised. Their interactions were fascinating to watch, a tug-of-war that just kept going where neither of them could ever be the true winner.
This book is a wonderful example of how small details can help to create incredibly vivid characters. The writing style is beautiful and like I said, the characters were incredibly real and 3-dimensional. None of them felt flat. None of them were purely good or purely evil. You could despise a character for their actions, only to feel sorry for them five pages later, when their motivations were explained.
4.5 Stars
This book is a true masterpiece of writing. A slow-paced very character-based masterpiece. All the characters in this book felt incredibly real, even if they were not people I could easily relate too. All of them had their struggles and problems, their background stories that related to them, their quirks and weird habits, which made all of them feel so incredibly alive. At times I felt as if I was standing right next to the characters, watching them up close and personal.
The book starts with the Richardson house. Several small fires have been lit in it and their youngest child Izzy, the rebel, is gone. Temporarily, her siblings think. She realized that she went to far this time, setting the house ablaze and decided to take some time out.
From that moment, the story jumps back in time and we are told the story of artist Mia and her daughter Pearl moving in and how their lives start to intertwine with the Richardson household. Both families influence each other. And the story goes even further back in time, telling the story of everybody and explaining their motivations and reasons for doing what they do.
Despite all of these different relationships, at the core of this book is only one. The relationship between a mother and her child. We are told stories about all kinds of mothers. And one of the main strands of the book is the question what one needs to be a mother in the custody case that divides Shaker. A young, poor Chinese-American mother left her child on the doorstep of a fire station after her boyfriend left her in the town she moved for him, where she is unable to find work and feed the child. A local white, rich family that had been looking to adopt a child for ages are overjoyed. But after the birth mother gets back to her feet and finds a job she just wants her child back. And now the question is what makes someone a mother. Is it the possibility to give a child everything they could want in material riches and a loving family with two parents, or is it the love of a birth mother that would do everything for her child?
Another fascinating relationship was the one between Izzy and her mother. Mrs. Richardson had nearly lost her when she was a baby and thus always was a bit more attentive to her than to her other children. When Izzy pushed for her freedom Mrs. Richardson feared that, until her worry for her child turned into disdain for the unruly daughter she raised. Their interactions were fascinating to watch, a tug-of-war that just kept going where neither of them could ever be the true winner.
This book is a wonderful example of how small details can help to create incredibly vivid characters. The writing style is beautiful and like I said, the characters were incredibly real and 3-dimensional. None of them felt flat. None of them were purely good or purely evil. You could despise a character for their actions, only to feel sorry for them five pages later, when their motivations were explained.