Little Fires Everywhere, besides being a powerful story and commentary on suburban America, is a novel that transcends genre. As I have pondered how to classify this novel, I’ve realized that there is no one classification – it has no bounds.

Set in a suburb of Cleveland, the planned community of Shaker Heights, the story surrounds the Richardson family – Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, Lexie, Moody, Trip, and Izzy and is paralleled by the story of their rental tenants, Mia and Pearl Warren.

Shaker Heights, despite its name, does not get shook often. “Outside in the world, volcanoes erupted, governments rose and collapsed and bartered for hostages, rockets exploded, walls fell. But in Shaker Heights, things were peaceful, and riots and bombs and earthquakes were quiet thumps, muffled by distance.”

Mia and Pearl Warren are transients. Mia, an artist, moves around in search of inspiration for her work. Pearl, her timid but pedantic daughter, follows suit. Mia has promised Pearl that their move to Shaker Heights will be permanent, having spent many years traveling, uprooting and moving on.

Befriended by Moody, Pearl becomes ingrained in the day-to-day lives of the Richardson family. She is best friends with Moody, admires and esteems their oldest teenage daughter Lexie, and falls in teenage lust with their jock son, Trip.

Pearl, having never been close with anyone her age before, is enamored with the Richardsons, and even occasionally pictures herself as Mrs. Richardson’s daughter – how different her life would be. Not better or worse, but different.

Elena Richardson, used to the order of things in her household and getting what she wants, is upended by Mia’s arrival. This woman, who has skirted the normalcies of American life, who has defied the boundaries of family and order to traipse around the country, brings an element of disorder that Elena is unfamiliar with, foreign to her. She looks down on Mia’s nomadic lifestyle, but her turned nose is a sign of jealousy – what could Elena have been if she had refused to conform?

The primary conflicts of the novel come from a place of human error – ignorance, negligence, and unprompted interference. In short, everyone is in everyone else’s business all the time!

Elena Richardson sees the world in black and white. Her husband notes this in the novel – “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 there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure  she embraces it, and exposes the Richardson children to the “gray” way of things – the middle between right and wrong, where she has found passion in her life. Mia is the light and example of alternate living, and the Richardson kids, particularly troublemaking, unconventional Izzy, are drawn to her flame.

I was “meh” about the way certain relationships ended in the story. I was also not in agreement with some of the decisions characters made – they made me mad, even while making me question morality. In the end, Elena Richardson subverts the Warrens’ place in Shaker Heights, using manipulation to force them to admit truths Mia has been running from. Pearl, in her ever-evolving dedication to her mother, sticks by her as she learns all the truths she never asked about. Her opinion of her mother doesn’t change.

Although the story may not have had a typical “happy ending” for Pearl and Mia, they persevere – and that ending is fitting. No matter who tries to sabotage them, and despite Mrs. Richardson’s best efforts, their dedication to each other, and to a life well lived, forges on. Mia repeats this often in times of stress and crisis throughout the book – “she’s going to be fine.” She has an unwavering ability to persevere, and she brings that forth as a talisman throughout the novel.