Little Fires Everywhere

1. General Impressions

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• Given the novel’s popularity, did you know anything about Little Fires Everywhere before reading it? If so, how did this impact your reading experience?
• Celeste Ng’s other works include Everything I Never Told You (2014) and Our Missing Hearts (2022). Have you read anything else by Ng? If you have, how does this novel compare? If you haven’t, based on Little Fires Everywhere, would you like to? Why or why not?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• This novel contains two mothers—Mia and Bebe—who abscond with their birth daughters after surrogacy and surrender respectively. What determines one’s rights to motherhood, in your view? What is your relationship like with your mother, or a mother-like figure in your life? How does it compare with the various mother-child relationships in this novel? 
• Mia uses art for self-expression, which resonates with a character like Izzy, who feels ostracized from her family. What role does artistic production and creativity play in your life?
• Do you side more with Mrs. Robinson or Mia over the fate of Bebe’s child, and why?
• At the end of the novel, Mia leaves personalized gifts for the Robinson family that speak to their internal identities. Has anyone ever given you a gift that you felt spoke to who you are in your soul? What was the gift?

3. Societal and Cultural Context

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

• Mia’s social difference from the rest of Shaker Heights is primarily economic. While her race is not specified in the novel, Ng has stated that she intended her to be a white, working-class woman. How does her economic difference from the Robinson family fuel their disagreements? Does this reflect real-world class dynamics?
• The television adaptation of the novel casts Black actress Kerry Washington as Mia. If you have seen the show, how does this decision alter the dynamic between Mia and Mrs. Robinson from what it is like in the book? If you have not seen it, how do you imagine it would?
• How does the social environment in Shaker Heights add nuance to conversations about racism in the United States?
• Consider historical moments in the United States in which non-white children have been seized from their families and adopted by white families—for instance, among Black communities in the 80s and 90s during the “crack epidemic” and Indigenous communities before The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978. How does this novel’s representation of this phenomenon compare with these historic examples?

4. Literary Analysis

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

• Why do you think Ng tells the reader from Chapter 1 that Izzy set the fire that destroys her family’s house? How would the novel change if the reader didn’t know who set the fire until the end?
• While the reader immediately finds out that Izzy sets the fire, other large plot twists—like the story of how Pearl’s birth—aren’t revealed until much later in the novel. How does Ng structure the reveal of these plot twists, and what is the effect of this?
• How does the animosity and disagreement slowly build between Mia and Mrs. Robinson’s characters? What contributes to the rift between them?
• There is one large, isolated, physical fire in the novel, and yet the title is Little Fires Everywhere. What does this title mean? What are the little fires everywhere?
• Why do Pearl and Izzy gravitate away from their own mothers and toward each other’s—Pearl toward Mrs. Robinson, and Izzy toward Mia?

5. Creative Engagement

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

• Mia takes photographs that represent people as she sees them. Try taking photos with your phone or camera that represent people (with their permission) or items as you see them. After doing this, bring your photos back to the group. What did you photograph, and how does it represent someone or something as you see them?
• Izzy has an impulse toward activism. Mia shows her ways to channel that into art. Ultimately, Izzy uses an artist’s eye to set her family’s house on fire. Imagine an art project that more productively channeled Izzy’s activist beliefs. What could she have created to convey her feelings about how her family treated the Warrens?
• At the end of the novel, Mrs. Richardson loses Izzy, Bebe and her baby disappear, and Mia runs away with Pearl. What do you imagine or hope happens to these characters after the novel ends?

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