About a book: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste NG
“I’m just saying. It’s a complicated situation, that’s all.” Page 268
I hope this book sticks with me in my memory. It is one of the most complicated and beautiful books I’ve read this year. There is so much to ponder and so many different sides to consider. This book felt like there were like 10 trains heading for the same junction and about to collide, and when it did, everyone is exposed for who they really are, even if just to themselves. It even started as slow as a train and then built up with normal speed to complexities that once you got going are hard to slow down.
If the book had been written with me as a character, I would feel exposed. I would feel like everyone knew the real me. The good parts and the bad parts and the intricate complexities and reasons for each of them. This book shows both side of individual humans, the good and the bad. It takes away the hero figures or the normal persons, and just brings us all down to the same level. We are all just trying to live life. I hope that we can all be honest and no longer hide behind who we think we are supposed to be.
“Little Fires Everywhere” is set in in a so-called model community, one that presents itself as better than other communities. Yet beneath the beauty and organization you find real people with real problems. If you read this you will face the important issues of: white privilege, immigration, abortion, teen sex, and crimes that somehow feel justifiable. At the same time if you can read this introspectively, you can see your flaws. How you take sides at times when you don’t have all the information. How you really feel and what it would be like if all your good was placed aside your bad and people knew you. When you judge people harshly just to lift the blinders and find out that you are just as guilty.
When passions are revealed it can leave little fires everywhere unless we choose to suppress them. I want to read this book again. I want to read it with Mo. I enjoyed this book and, in a way, didn’t want it to end. But then again, I have my life to live and my passions get to fuel the dangerous fire that lies beneath the surface. I just pray that I can be bold enough to let them be fanned into flame.