Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Read this book, go download the audiobook or check it out from your local library (or library app Libby). This is one of the good ones.
To those out on their own paths, setting little fires
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
I am so impressed by Celeste Ng and her ability to validate women, no matter which path they might have taken in life. The stay at home mom, the successful business woman, the artist with a part-time job to pay the bills, the immigrant working to make ends meet, the teenager consumed by college and romance and curiosity, the teenager who has had enough and needs to burn it down and start over.
One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules… was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure what side of the line you stood on.
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
I refuse to spoil a single moment of this book. It’s amazing, a true case of girls supporting girls. Go read it already!!
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.
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
A few other favorite quotes:
“It terrifies you. That you missed out on something. That you gave up something you didn’t know you wanted.” A sharp, pitying smile pinched the corners of her lips. “What was it? Was it a boy? Was it a vocation? Or was it a whole life?”
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Mia said suddenly. “I think you can’t imagine. Why anyone would choose a different life from the one you’ve got. Why anyone might want something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why anyone would choose anything different than what you’d choose.”
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
All her life, she had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches. Sparks leapt like fleas and spread as rapidly; a breeze could carry embers for miles. Better to control that spark and pass it carefully from one generation to the next, like an Olympic torch. Or, perhaps, to tend it carefully like an eternal flame: a reminder of light and goodness that would never – could never – set anything ablaze. Carefully controlled. Domesticated. Happy in captivity. The key, she thought, was to avoid conflagration
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
There is so much weaved into this story. I will give away no more, just once again implore you to read Little Fires Everywhere.