Why it’s essential
Celeste Ng’s unpauseable novel, which inspired a hit TV miniseries, delves into family dynamics, motherhood, identity—and secrets—through the lives of two suburban Ohio families.
Featured in The Audible Essentials Top 100.
What is Little Fires Everywhere about?
Set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in the late '90s, Little Fires Everywhere focuses on two radically different women who are brought together by their children—with unexpected and, ultimately, tragic consequences.
Editor’s review
Mysia (“Misha”) is a book person who loves escaping into twisty mysteries and contemporary fiction driven by complicated characters.
I became a first-time mom at 40—to a nine-year-old girl. My daughter, Lucero, is adopted, and though she occasionally sounds like me (it’s thrilling to hear my words coming out of her mouth), we don’t look anything alike. In terms of race and ethnicity, Lucero is Black and Hispanic, and I’m white and roughly three-quarters English and a quarter Italian. Over the years, I’ve rarely encountered overt criticism for choosing transracial adoption, partly because Lucero was adopted as an older child who had spent nearly three years in foster care with five different families before I met her. Would I have been judged differently if I had adopted my daughter as an infant? Would I have adopted my daughter if I knew her biological mother had given her up in a moment of desperation and then regretted it and just as desperately wanted her back?
The theme of transracial adoption is what drew me to Little Fires Everywhere. Celeste Ng’s beautiful writing, richly drawn characters, and sensitive exploration of the challenges and complexities of motherhood are what kept me immersed in the story and left me thinking long after I had finished reading. Yes, I got caught up in the controversial battle for custody of a Chinese American baby (Mirabelle/May Ling) between the well-off white couple about to finalize her adoption and the birth mother who, for heart-wrenching reasons, was unable to care for her. But I became deeply invested in the novel’s two main characters, Elena Richardson and Mia Warren, and each woman’s fraught relationship with her own 15-year-old daughter.
Opening in 1997, Little Fires Everywhere is set in Shaker Heights, Ohio—a suburban community carefully planned and maintained with the goals of integration and harmonious living. It’s an actual place, and the setting is integral to the story. Elena is a third-generation Shaker Heights resident and believes in rules and order as the keys to keeping the peace. She works as a reporter for the local paper, but her priority is being a mother to her four now teenage children—Lexie, Trip, Moody, and Izzy. Mia is a gifted photographer and, despite her nomadic lifestyle, a devoted mother as well. Her daughter, Pearl, has gotten used to not only moving from place to place but also to her mother’s knack for evading questions, especially about the identity of her father. When they arrive in Shaker Heights, however, Mia promises Pearl that the two of them will "stay put." They rent a house owned by the Richardsons, and before long, the lives of Elena and Mia—and the fates of their children—become intertwined in unexpected ways.
The younger Richardson boy, Moody is curious about the new tenants and rides over on his bike to meet them. Moody and Pearl hit it off and become fast friends. He invites Pearl to his house, and she is immediately smitten by their lovely, well-organized home, by how they live up to her vision of a real, loving family, and by the older Richardson boy, Trip. Before long, Pearl is walking home to the Richardsons’ house after school every day. Elena is welcoming but wary, and sensing that her new tenant could use the money, she offers to hire Mia as her housekeeper. Reluctantly, and to Pearl’s mortification, Mia agrees to part-time work and soon forges a bond with Elena’s youngest child, the rebellious Izzy. While Elena sees Izzy as defiant and difficult to handle, Mia recognizes Izzy’s empathy for others and encourages her to act on her outrage against an injustice at school. Izzy is also fascinated by Mia’s photography and asks if she could use an assistant.
Pearl prefers spending time at the Richardsons over doing anything with her mother, and Izzy seizes every chance to escape a family where she feels like a freak to be with Mia—sparking tension between Elena and Mia that only escalates when a bitter custody battle of a Chinese American baby divides the town. Already critical of Mia for her unconventional lifestyle and parenting, Elena starts digging into her tenant’s past—and as it turns out, Mia has a secret she’s been hiding. Since I want my review to be spoiler-free, I’ll just say that a lot happens in Little Fires Everywhere that’s hurtful to everyone—but especially Pearl and Izzy. And it doesn’t end well for anyone.
As a narrator, Jennifer Lim does a wonderful job of telling this intricate, affecting story of motherhood, secrets, first love, art, and two very different women. Lim captures Celeste Ng’s gift for making both Elena and Mia—each of whom certainly has her flaws—not only intriguing but also sympathetic. I love novels about families driven by complicated, often unpredictable characters, and Little Fires Everywhere is one of the best I’ve read. In the Hulu adaptation, which I haven’t watched, Mia and Pearl are Black. In the book, their race is never stated, which, to me, adds another layer to Elena’s suspicions and actions. While listening to the novel, I pictured Mia as a bohemian with a troubled past she keeps trying to run away from. What I saw, in my mind’s eye, was her spirit rather than her skin color. If you haven’t streamed the miniseries, I urge you to listen first—with an open mind about both Mia and Elena. As the story progresses, your view of each of them is likely to change and just might surprise you.
Did you know?
Celeste Ng grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where Little Fires Everywhere is set. She has described writing about her hometown as "a little bit like writing about a relative. You see all of the great things about them, you love them dearly, and yet, you also know all of their quirks and their foibles."
As Ng has shared in interviews, the character of Mia Warren was inspired in part by Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, a character who also keeps secrets about her journey to motherhood and names her precious daughter Pearl.
What listeners said
"Another thoughtful and thought-provoking book by Celeste Ng. I loved her first book, and didn't imagine that this one could be as good, but it is. This is a sensitive and nuanced look at motherhood, social class and race. She does not let her characters or her plot off with easy answers, or with good guys and bad guys. Even though each character seems to be somewhat of a 'type' initially, as the narrative deepens we see how multifaceted each participant in this story is and I found myself feeling more and more empathy for each of them as the story developed. Lovely and evocative book that I didn't want to end … the narrator was perfect." –Robin, Audible listener
"Celeste Ng covers a lot of ground in Little Fires Everywhere–conformity vs. thinking for yourself, motherhood, relationships, secrets, lies, culture, ethnicity, creativity, economic safety vs. barely getting by, family dynamics, and privilege. There really are little fires everywhere, both literal and figurative. Like Everything I Never Told You, this story opens at the end and then the author tells an engrossing tale to explain how it all unfolded. Ng has an extraordinary ability to make the reader consider a story from different perspectives through her well-developed and complicated characters. Even the setting of Shaker Heights, planned, manicured, and with rules for everything, contributes to the narrative." –Bonny, Audible listener
"The triumph of Celeste Ng’s novel is the clever weaving together of multiple storylines and a large cast of characters. Her use of omniscience is impressive and effective. The story becomes increasingly tense and suspenseful and she ties everything together thematically without answering all questions raised. I can see why the book is such a hit. Thoughtful and intelligent, but also a good entertaining read. Jennifer Lim’s reading is perfection. Clear, swift, nuanced but subtle. I wish she had recorded more books." –David, Audible listener
Quotes from Little Fires Everywhere
"Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you."
"A lot of times, parents are not the best at seeing their children clearly."
"Parents, she thought, learned to survive touching their children less and less … The occasional embrace, a head leaned for just a moment on your shoulder, when what you really wanted more than anything was to press them to you and hold them so tight you fused together and could never be taken apart. It was like training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all."
"She had learned that when people were bent on doing something they believed was a good deed, it was usually impossible to dissuade them."
"Change doesn’t just happen … It has to be planned."
"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."
Adaptations
In 2020, Little Fires Everywhere was adapted into a Hulu Original miniseries, co-produced by and starring Reese Witherspoon as Elena Richardson and Kerry Washington as Mia Warren.
About the author
Celeste Ng is the New York Times bestselling author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts, as well as numerous short stories, including the Pushcart Prize-winning "Girls, At Play." Her work has been published in more than 30 languages. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Michigan, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts, she is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. The daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong, she was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and at the age of 10, moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio, with her parents and sister. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and son.
About the performer
Jennifer Lim is a stage, screen, and voice actress most noted for her performance as Vice Minister Xi Yan in Chinglish by playwright David Henry Hwang, which opened on Broadway in 2011. Born in Hong Kong, she was the recipient of the first Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) Trophy for Excellence. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Drama from the University of Bristol and studied for an MFA at the Yale School of Drama. In addition to Little Fires Everywhere, her audiobook performances include Lisa See’s historical novels, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women and The Island of Sea Women.
Listen if you loved
