Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng)

Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere is one of those phenomenon books that spread by word of mouth. It was on the bestseller list for a long time, and for good reason. Each character is as intriguing as the next, all with multiple layers and secrets with major repercussions.

Shaker Heights is a planned suburb of Cleveland. The residents there take pride in the rules and structure of their community, especially Elena Richardson, journalist, wife, and the mother of three children. The book begins with the the Richardson house burning to the ground, and the youngest daughter, Izzy, nowhere to be found.

Ng wisely begins with this shocker, and then presents us with what led up to it. So many plot points are in play here, from Mia Warren and her daughter, Pearl, moving into the neighborhood, to the custody battle for a Chinese-American baby. Little Fires Everywhere is one giant puzzle, and the reader waits with bated breath until the final puzzle piece is ready to go in.

I reviewed Ng's Everything I Never Told You just a few weeks ago, but I found this so much better. While Everything felt dull and confusing during the last quarter, this one stays interesting and layered until the very end, just like a puzzle. I loved it.

MY RATING - 4.5

Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng)

The opening lines of Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You shocks you from the very beginning: "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." Based on these lines, the reader obviously assumes that this book is some type of mystery. But what Ng surprisingly does instead is make what happened to Lydia the secondary part of the story. Instead, this is a book about a family in turmoil, both before Lydia died and after.

Set in the 70s, Everything I Never Told You is about Marilyn and James Lee and their children, a Chinese American family living in a small town. Even though she has two other children, Marilyn's attention is focused on Lydia, making sure she has the opportunities (whether or not she even wants them is beside the point) that Marilyn never had. The family struggles to overcome the hardships in their lives until one day, Lydia goes missing.

This is a page-turner at the beginning, but I found the last quarter of the book dull and even confusing. However, Ng does create here a profoundly moving narrative of a family trying to understand each other and wondering if it's too late to mend its connections.

MY RATING - 3.5