It’s hard to explain why I connect with them, so that’s the excuse explanation I give myself. In these novels, to me, there’s an essence of the traditional fireside storytelling in how their stories are told. It happened with Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and most recently with Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. I don’t know what it is about such first sentences, but there is a vibe in them that strongly connects with me and holds me tight throughout the story’s telling. This immediate attraction to a story from its first sentence has happened with only a few books. “Everyone 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.” Actually, from the first sentence I knew this would be a story I’d like, one I’d be hooked on until it’s end and even thereafter. Ng is a great writer and her talent for storytelling shines through it. Of the reasons why I love this novel, the foremost is the writing. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past.
When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.Įnter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. All that made me want to find out what exactly happens in the story and now I’m glad I read it because Little Fires Everywhere is one of my favorite books of 2017. I received an ARC copy, most likely through a contest, which I requested because the blurb says it’s about “an enigmatic artist” who’s a single mom who has a “mysterious past” and whose “disregard for the status quo” upsets the “carefully ordered community” she moves into with her daughter. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. This is one of the many books that surprised me this year.
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