{"id":952,"date":"2020-02-21T22:07:49","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T22:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/?p=952"},"modified":"2020-03-26T17:16:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T17:16:24","slug":"celeste-ngs-little-fires-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/2020\/02\/21\/celeste-ngs-little-fires-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From Celeste Ng’s website<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

As a college student who has long since deviated from finishing books in one sitting or even just reading for the fun of it (sound familiar?), it takes a lot to keep me invested. I can\u2019t count how many books I\u2019ve started and promptly forgotten due to a weak plot, lackluster characters, or whatever it is I need in a book to justify spending precious time \u2013 which I could be using for sleeping, eating, or studying \u2013 alone in my room, turning pages until I reach the end.<\/p>\n

From the first chapter of Celeste Ng\u2019s literary fiction novel, Little Fires Everywhere<\/em><\/a>, I knew it was a book I could lose myself in. If ever I\u2019ve read a good hook, the first line of Little Fires Everywhere<\/em> is just it: \u201cEveryone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.\u201d The chapter goes on to introduce the rest of the Richardsons, the family at the center of the story, as each of them reacts to coming home to a house on fire. Although the first chapter is the last chronological event in the novel, it sets the stage for a story about how a suburban community \u2013 Shaker Heights \u2013 deals with intrusions on its tightly-controlled system, and how even its most restrained constituents can snap in the toughest situations.<\/p>\n

Little Fires Everywhere<\/em>\u2019s biggest strength is that it weaves a complex web of relationships. Each character is distinct. They\u2019re authentic, dynamic people. From the Richardson golden child, Lexi, to a traveling artist staying in town, Mia, to Mia\u2019s struggling coworker, Bebe, they all feel real because they\u2019re all flawed. At one time or another, each character has less-than-likeable moments, just like people in the real world. Even characters not central to the story have three-dimensional personalities; occasionally, the narration even swivels to their perspective, lending the reader insight into their worldview. Ng succeeds in giving each character at least a kernel of relatability. I cared about what happened to the people in the story, and that kept me reading.<\/p>\n

Ng\u2019s language is also so tight and immersive that Shaker Heights comes alive on the page. It was easy to get lost in the story because the descriptions enveloped me in a new world, which is exactly what I need when I\u2019m trying to escape the pressures of this one. Settings, people, and situations are chronicled in detail, painting vivid pictures in the reader\u2019s mind. The only thing I struggled with was that the descriptions were sometimes long-winded. At times, I forgot what I was supposed to be reading about.<\/p>\n

It took a while to reach the book\u2019s main conflict, a controversy over the adoption of a baby who was given to new parents under messy circumstances. In fact, this conflict isn\u2019t even set up until about a third of the way into the story. I was often engrossed enough with the vibrant writing that I wasn\u2019t thinking about the central plotline, but I did occasionally wonder where the story was leading me. Tangents into what feels like insignificant characters\u2019 lives occur every so often. The issue seems to be that the language is so lovely that it isn\u2019t curtailed perhaps as often as it should be.<\/p>\n

Maybe the idea, though, is that no character is insignificant in Shaker Heights, no matter how minor they may seem on the surface. And as much as the story may have meandered before focusing, I was never bored. I loved that the prose was so captivating that I felt like I was living in Shaker Heights rather than putting off starting yet another homework assignment in Ann Arbor. All the characters were intriguing, and I wanted to know how they dealt with the adversities they faced. More than anything, Little Fires Everywhere<\/em> felt real. These are all factors that made me want to keep reading, and why I\u2019ll recommend this book to anyone looking to be captivated by a new world. It\u2019s no wonder that of all the books I\u2019ve tried and failed to finish, though it\u2019s a slow burn, this was the one that enthralled me from beginning to end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a college student who has long since deviated from finishing books in one sitting or even just reading for the fun of it (sound familiar?), it takes a lot to keep me invested. I can\u2019t count how many books I\u2019ve started and promptly forgotten due to a weak plot, lackluster characters, or whatever it Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,73],"tags":[99,137,102,138,103,139,51,58],"class_list":["post-952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-read-it-out","tag-book-review","tag-celeste-ng","tag-english-344","tag-little-fires-everywhere","tag-public-writing","tag-read-it-out","tag-umich","tag-university-of-michigan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1028,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}