Remember, Mia had said: Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.
The Richardsons live in a perfect house in a perfect town. Mia, an unassuming young artist, moves into their rental house with her daughter. The ties between the two families become increasingly close... then it all goes very wrong. And yes, it involves fire.
After a slow start for me, the book began to show some promise when, alerted to the presence in a local museum of a photo that appears to portray her new tenants, Mrs. Richardson agrees to use her journalistic skills to investigate. Alas, from insufferably rigid, she soon turned into an unscrupulous busybody and I lost all patience with her. Additionally, I wish I'd kept a tally of the coincidences that pop up over the course of the narrative, because I'm willing to bet it could rival Dickens. I freely admit to skimming the last 50 pages or so, and not because I was impatient to know the ending.
To be fair, it's not all bad. The characters are well drawn and believable; it's just that I felt no connection with and little empathy for them even in their moments of despair. I should have listened to my instinct when it told me that this wouldn't be my cup of tea... Add to this the fact that the title itself threatened to trigger my pyrophobia, and I only have myself to blame for a not very pleasant reading experience. However, if a suburban novel that deals with teenagers and their sex lives, mother-children relationships and interracial adoption sounds good to you, then I've little doubt you'll enjoy Little Fires Everywhere.
I borrowed this book from my local library.
Rating: ***
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