Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

We had high hopes for this book , an “international bestseller” and recently televised. A good, well written, very readable story – a little far fetched and contrived but that’s ok, its fiction. Too many different themes and stories though for any to be developed fully which is a shame as that could have been interesting. Ditto with the number of characters which meant that as a reader you didn’t emotionally invest in a main character. It made it feel a little like a collection of short stories – or a series of episodes in a TV series. It did make us want to watch the TV series though.

On the plus side, it prompted a lively discussion around the challenges and themes of adoption (if you were the Judge, what would you have decided?), cultural differences, social differences, surrogacy, abortion, abandonment and parenting.

“I felt like I was supposed to like Mia, Mrs Richardson and Izzy – and I didn’t. Point of view of the father not considered anywhere. Bit vanilla and contrived.”

“I’ve binge-watched the TV series and felt the ending was better than the book. I enjoyed the story but was disappointed with the end. Felt it was just set-up for a sequel.” 

“Liked the fact that the characters were flawed. There’s an honesty in the fact that she didn’t treat her children equally. I quite liked the circular nature. “

“I enjoyed it, but it’s a shame the fathers didn’t really feature or appear to be considered.”

Overall score 7.1

Range 6.5 – 8