Little Fires Everywhere
Written by Celeste Ng
The Shaker Heights Community is a progressive suburb of Cleveland, Ohio and the main setting of Little Fires Everywhere. This is a planned community where all the houses complement each other and not a blade of grass is out of place.
Elana Richardson lives in this community with her husband and four teenage children. Elana rents a house in this same community to an artist, single mother, Mia Warren, and her teenage daughter, Pearl. Pearl soon befriends the four Richardson children and spends a great deal of time at their house. Elana asks Mia if she will clean and cook for the Richardson’s to help with the rent. Mia agrees and she soon becomes entwined in all of their lives.
Elana is a news reporter and begins to research Mia Warren for a variety of reasons and soon uncovers her past. When a local family friend of the Richardson’s ends up in a custody battle over a child left at a fire station by a single Asian mother at the end of her rope, it pits the two women against each other. The whole community and even the Richardson’s children have strong feelings about this matter.
Even in what seems to be the perfect community, the perfect house, and the perfect family, there are always secrets and fires to be put out. Little Fires Everywhere is a good, quick book to read
LB
