**I try my best not to write ANY type of spoiler in my reviews, so if you have not read this book yet and are planning to, I trust you will be safe reading this review before reading the book.**
So here it is everyone, my very un-popular rating of only 2 stars to:
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Release Date: September 12, 2017
Read from: 10/1/2018 - 4/26/2020
Format: Print (Borrowed) (BOTM- September 2017)
My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Goodreads Rating: 4.11 stars
Yup, I am rating this book 2 stars. I just did not like it. It started out okay, and I felt like it was alright for a while, but then I started to notice I just wasn't getting what I wanted out of this book. And when I got to one particularly long and unnecessarily drawn out back story towards the end of the book, I was like you know what, no. I am not enjoying my time with this book at all, and I don’t need to pretend I agree that it’s good because everyone else loved it. It started in such an explosive and interesting way, and you spend the entire novel wondering how we got to that point. But the way the story was told made me care less and less as I gradually forgot what the heck I was actually interested in finding out anymore because there was so much crap in the middle to take your mind off onto so many different tracks. I really tried to give it a chance for a long time, but I just couldn’t any longer by that point. And now, as I’ve gone through a few posts in some of my Facebook book groups, I’m learning that lots of other people had the same thoughts as me, so I’m honestly not sure why this book has gotten so much hype!
The one thing I’ll give it is that the story it was telling was interesting. I did care about finding out the mysteries that were being spun. But I did not give any f***s about the characters, and the way the story was being told really took away from what the story really was. There was way too much description and not enough dialogue. And the back stories came so randomly and sometimes were so long that I’d forget what the story was originally even about, and then I'd get thrown off when we went back to the main story and all of a sudden the character the backstory was about became a side character again. (Long run on sentence, sorry! LOL)
The story takes place in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio called Shaker Heights. It's a real town, and looks exactly like I imagined it to. Pretty, rich and well manicured. The book is told a few stories, about three family’s; the McCoullough’s, the Richardson’s and the Warren’s. The Warrens move into the rental property owned by the Richardson’s, after a long life of being nomads around the country. They are mysterious, but the daughter, Pearl, wants nothing more than to be a normal high school student. Her mother is the eccentric, mysterious Mia who has the secrets we’re trying to figure out. Mrs. Richardson is best friends with Mrs. McCoullogh, and when the baby that the McCoulloghs are trying to adopt is threatened to be taken away from them in an unfair way, the Richardson’s get very involved, creating a rift between themselves and Mia Warren.
The one thing I’ll give it is that the story it was telling was interesting. I did care about finding out the mysteries that were being spun. But I did not give any f***s about the characters, and the way the story was being told really took away from what the story really was. There was way too much description and not enough dialogue. And the back stories came so randomly and sometimes were so long that I’d forget what the story was originally even about, and then I'd get thrown off when we went back to the main story and all of a sudden the character the backstory was about became a side character again. (Long run on sentence, sorry! LOL)
The story takes place in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio called Shaker Heights. It's a real town, and looks exactly like I imagined it to. Pretty, rich and well manicured. The book is told a few stories, about three family’s; the McCoullough’s, the Richardson’s and the Warren’s. The Warrens move into the rental property owned by the Richardson’s, after a long life of being nomads around the country. They are mysterious, but the daughter, Pearl, wants nothing more than to be a normal high school student. Her mother is the eccentric, mysterious Mia who has the secrets we’re trying to figure out. Mrs. Richardson is best friends with Mrs. McCoullogh, and when the baby that the McCoulloghs are trying to adopt is threatened to be taken away from them in an unfair way, the Richardson’s get very involved, creating a rift between themselves and Mia Warren.
-Shaker Heights, Ohio (www.ShakerOnline.com)
It’s hard to say too much else without giving things away. But the book will also focus on the four different Richardson children and the troubles they find themselves in, as well as Pearl, and a large and very central quest to figure out what the deal is with the Warrens. They are very mysterious afterall!
That all sounds interesting right? Like I can see why the TV show might be better. The plot points of this story reall are interesting to me. The author just told us the story in (in my opinion) such a horrible way, and created characters that really just annoyed me or pissed me off. The only people I could find myself rooting for were the misunderstood Izzy and quiet Moody who were not very focused on in the book as far as getting their POVs on anything, and the McCoulloughs, who were also not very focused on as people, aside from as a subject that the other characters are very focused on. We never get any part of the story told from their points of view. I noticed that when the book spent too much time on someone’s point of view, I realized they were really annoying people and that I did not like them. LOL. And therefore anything they wanted I was like eh, you don’t deserve it. Maybe my resentful feelings towards the characters were there because of the tedious way I had to absorb this story, and not so much that they were actually dis-likable characters. You CAN like a book even when you don’t like the people the author has created. But in this case, I really feel like I became resentful about everything from the story to the characters because the author told the story so terribly. I felt like if someone was reading this book to me that the narration and tone of voice would be indifferent and pretentious. The feelings I got from being told a story in that tone really just annoyed me and yeah. To me, this book basically sucked! So yeah. Sorry my opinion is not exactly the norm, but I just do not get the hype.
It’s hard to say too much else without giving things away. But the book will also focus on the four different Richardson children and the troubles they find themselves in, as well as Pearl, and a large and very central quest to figure out what the deal is with the Warrens. They are very mysterious afterall!
That all sounds interesting right? Like I can see why the TV show might be better. The plot points of this story reall are interesting to me. The author just told us the story in (in my opinion) such a horrible way, and created characters that really just annoyed me or pissed me off. The only people I could find myself rooting for were the misunderstood Izzy and quiet Moody who were not very focused on in the book as far as getting their POVs on anything, and the McCoulloughs, who were also not very focused on as people, aside from as a subject that the other characters are very focused on. We never get any part of the story told from their points of view. I noticed that when the book spent too much time on someone’s point of view, I realized they were really annoying people and that I did not like them. LOL. And therefore anything they wanted I was like eh, you don’t deserve it. Maybe my resentful feelings towards the characters were there because of the tedious way I had to absorb this story, and not so much that they were actually dis-likable characters. You CAN like a book even when you don’t like the people the author has created. But in this case, I really feel like I became resentful about everything from the story to the characters because the author told the story so terribly. I felt like if someone was reading this book to me that the narration and tone of voice would be indifferent and pretentious. The feelings I got from being told a story in that tone really just annoyed me and yeah. To me, this book basically sucked! So yeah. Sorry my opinion is not exactly the norm, but I just do not get the hype.
I will, however, be checking out the TV show, because I love Reese Witherspoon, and like I said, the plot points seem like they'd be good for TV. Here's to (hopefully) enjoying that at least!
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