“Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng

I picked up this book while I was waiting for some others to come in at the library, it just happened to be available and I had heard it was good before. Other than that, I didn’t know much about the plot or anything, I just thought it looked good and would be something to read. I ended up really enjoying the book, I want to read Ng’s other book as well now.

The story starts at the end. The Richardsons’ house is burning down while the family watches, they are all certain it was the work of the youngest daughter Izzy. It then goes back to before the fire, when the latest tenant at the Richardson’s rental place is moving in. The new tenants are Mia, an artist, and her daughter Pearl. Pearl meets Moody, one of the Richardson kids, and becomes integrated into the Richardson family fairly easily, becoming friends with the older daughter Lexie as well. Mia even ends up doing some cleaning for the Richardsons, which is where Izzy meets her, and Izzy starts to help Mia with her art.

Shortly after this, Mia overhears at the Richardsons’ that their friends recently adopted a baby that was abandoned at a fire station. Turns out that Mia knows the mother and that she wants to get her baby back, so Mia starts helping Bebe (the mom) fight a legal battle for custody. Bebe is Asian, but her daughter was taken in by a white couple. This triggers a reckoning in the town about whether white parents can adequately raise an Asian baby when they know nothing about Asian culture. Meanwhile, Lexie has accidentally gotten pregnant from her boyfriend and takes Pearl with her to get an abortion. She even uses Pearl’s name as a cover! Mia ends up caring for Lexie while she recovers, causing Lexie to look more leniently on Bebe for abandoning her baby. However, Mrs. Richardson sees Pearl’s name at the abortion clinic, and thinks Pearl got an abortion with her son as the father. Mrs. Richardson then kicks Mia and Pearl out of the rental, causing Mia to come clean to Pearl that Pearl was supposed to be another couple’s baby, Mia was just the surrogate. Mia and Pearl drive off, Izzy sets fire to the house and then heads after them.

Obviously a big theme of the book is motherhood. There’s Mia being a surrogate and then keeping the baby, Lexie getting an abortion, Bebe fighting to get her baby back, and Mrs. Richardson running her brood. I kept expecting the book to have some sort of stance on motherhood, this is right this is wrong, but in the end it feels fairly ambiguous. Obviously Ng supports Bebe having her child back and Mia keeping Pearl, but while the family that takes Bebe’s baby is unsuited to the task they aren’t evil. Same with the family Mia was having the baby for, they look really good care of her. It didn’t hit me until I got to the end of the book that maybe this expected judgement is the point. Motherhood comes with so much pressure and expectations, do this to be a good parent, when maybe we just need to be more lenient. Everyone is imperfect and going through their own issues; there is no right way to be a mother.

Another big theme is race. The book takes place in the 90s and the color-blind messaging of that era is everywhere. Lexie talks about how her boyfriend is Black and how lucky they are to be in a town that doesn’t see race. Mrs. Richardson talks up her friends who took Bebe’s baby as a family that doesn’t see race, something good for an Asian baby. But as the discourse around the trial shows, race is still very much present and impacts our reactions regardless. So in the end the color-blindness ends up being a myth.

I also enjoyed this book because I fell in love with Mia and Izzy. Mia is a wonderful character, an artist with a big heart. The descriptions of her art are really inventive and cool to imagine as the text doesn’t have images. So of course I, like Izzy in the book, fell for her hard. Izzy is a more extreme version of me from high school, a rebel who is the black sheep of her family. She only finds acceptance with Mia and in helping Mia with her art. I also just think that Mia is interesting in that it’s explicitly said she’s had no romantic relationships. She got pregnant from a baster to be the surrogate and hasn’t pursued anything else. It probably wasn’t intended by the author, but I think she’s an asexual/aromantic icon.

Despite how much is packed into the book, I found this to be a really fun and entertaining read! It was great to pick up something totally different while waiting for my other books to come in.