Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

SPOILERS BE HERE

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but it fell flat for me. I 100% believe part of that was due to me listening to it rather than reading it—I drifted in and out and couldn't keep the characters straight, specifically Izzy and Lexie; something about their names is too similar. I think the plot was interesting, but actions were random and didn't make sense. Why did Mia keep Pearl? I never felt like that decision was fully explored—she just up and left. And why did Izzy (...not Lexie, right?) set fires in the house? That seemed like such an extreme response to the things that happened. The characters were not fleshed out enough. I also felt like I was being led a little too much to sympathize with certain characters and dislike others.

I said the plot was interesting; it was also clunky. It jumped around from one thing to another so sporadically that it felt like a different book at times. It could have been handled a lot more smoothly by cutting some of the subplots out—too much was tackled for such a short book.

I'm giving this a 2.5 even though I had to force myself to finish it before it was due to the library because I feel like the book had a lot of potential. It just never quite reached it.

Completed: 15 March 2021
Rating: 2.5/5
Recommend: Undecided. A lot of people enjoyed it but it didn't resonate with me.

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