Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
In the small Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio, conformity is the ideal to which most people aspire -- including Elena Richardson. A local news reporter and general busybody, she is also the mother of four vastly different children: popular Lexie, athletic Trip, sensitive Moody, and troublemaker Izzy. When the Richardson family rents out one of their apartments to artist Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl, these new tenants soon become entangled in their lives. And with a fresh controversy building in Shaker Heights -- the fierce custody battle between an immigrant mother from China and white adoptive parents -- tensions between the Warrens and the Richardsons build to a fiery pitch. Written with a keen eye for character detail, Little Fires Everywhere explores what it means to be a family -- and how long-held secrets can fray even the strongest bonds.
Quote: "Mia looked down at Izzy, this wayward, fiery girl suddenly gone timid and dampened and desperate. She reminded Mia, oddly, of herself at around this age, traipsing through the neighborhood, climbing over fences and walls in search of the right photograph, defiantly spending her mother's money on film. Single-minded almost to excess. Something inside Izzy reached out to something in her and caught fire."
Author: Celeste Ng is the author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere. Her writing has appeared in publications including One Story, TriQuarterly,Bellevue Literary Review, and the Kenyon Review Online. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Published: 2017Length: 338 pagesSet in: Shaker Heights, Ohio, U.S.
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