100 Letters Book Club discussion
01 - Little Fires Everywhere
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WEEK 1 DISCUSSION - Little Fires Everywhere
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i immediately noticed the color red as a motif. in chinese culture, red refers to luck and wards off evil. in american culture, red tends to symbolize blood and bravery and love. the color red as fire overlaps in both and makes sense given the book title. my favorite reference to red was the “rose corsage… the petals darkened from ruby to dried-blood red” (pg.4) because it feels like an allusion to other transformations happening in the story (the house burning down, mia’s promise to pearl that they would stay in shaker heights, lexie applying to college, family dynamics) and the mention of blood feels like an omen too.
i’m excited to see if/how the color red/fire continues throughout the book! did anyone else notice any other motifs or find any favorite passages?
I don't know about you people, but every single interaction between Pearl and someone from the Richardson family in these inicial chapters makes me want to scream out of anxiety since from her perspective everything is so magical and utopic, there's no way things are as perfect as it seems in a place where people have rules for the color of the houses or how tall their grass should be.Apart from that, I loved almost every description (and how they were made) about Mia until now, especially the one about her rings in the first paragraph on chapter 2 and the overall devotion she has to her art. Which I'm excited to see how it will speak to us through the story in this book, because in the Amazon adaptation (one i highly recommend), her work follows the story in such an amazing and pleasing way! What else have y'all felt reading until now?
Milo wrote: "I don't know about you people, but every single interaction between Pearl and someone from the Richardson family in these inicial chapters makes me want to scream out of anxiety since from her pers..."Me too! I feel like Pearl has idealized this family too much, and I understand because they have such a different background from hers, but it still makes me mad because they cannot be as perfect as they pretend to be.
I feel like the Robinsons have some secret or a very dark side, especially Lexie (to be honest, I don't really like her). I kinda like Trip and Moody, but as I said, I don't fully trust the Robinsons.
I loved Mia's character!
PS. I didn't understand why Mia wearing a mood ring was "suspicious," can someone explain?
Kenly wrote: "Milo wrote: "I don't know about you people, but every single interaction between Pearl and someone from the Richardson family in these inicial chapters makes me want to scream out of anxiety since ..."i think ng wrote it to emphasize that mrs. richardson was judging mia by her rings. "they noticed no ring on her left hand" implies a judgment that she's unmarried with a child, the descriptions of the other rings feel like judgments of her artsiness, especially with the part later where mr. and mrs. richardson joke about her being a struggling artist. the mood ring might be judged because it's typically seen as a novelty or childish item not to be worn by an adult? it could also point to a sense of instability, someone flighty, as we know mia is constantly moving her and pearl around. very interesting implications here with just the mood ring!
Milo wrote: "I don't know about you people, but every single interaction between Pearl and someone from the Richardson family in these inicial chapters makes me want to scream out of anxiety since from her pers..."one of my favorite passages was the description of mia creating the inside out stuffed animals and how assertive she is about her process; when she's done, she's done. it gives you a very good sense of her boundary-setting and might come up in her parenting style.
Kit wrote: "Kenly wrote: "Milo wrote: "I don't know about you people, but every single interaction between Pearl and someone from the Richardson family in these inicial chapters makes me want to scream out of ..."Thank you!
Kit wrote: "Kenly wrote: "Milo wrote: "I don't know about you people, but every single interaction between Pearl and someone from the Richardson family in these inicial chapters makes me want to scream out of ..."woooo that makes sense! I got carried away with thought that from this passage we understand that she has much more to describe her as a person than just being "a married woman" (not that there's anything wrong about it as long as it's one's choice), and I didn't even noticed that it was, at first, a negative statement, lol.
the first thing i found myself thinking about was the structure of the book. now we're only 5 chapters in but it's already a complete different structure than i'm used to. like normally something happens and then it goes into detail about how that happened or whatever. and that might be the case for this but it felt like a snowball. like with the house on fire and then it cut to the neighbors and it cut to moody and that led to pearl and that led to her crush on trip and etc., which is fine but it definitely threw me off at first and it took me a few chapters to start getting into it.i also understand the points about being aggravated shes romanticisizing this family but i completely understand where pearl is coming from. like coming from a poorer life where you work for everything you have & don't get luxuries, it makes sense that she's in awe of this "rich life" the family has. like wanting what you can't have. but i agree that there is probably some secret with this family and i have a feeling it ties to izzy.
Sorry this discussion post is a day late. I’m in Rhode Island at the moment and I’ve been distracted. Moving forward I’m setting an alarm on my phone every Sunday LMAO.
Post any thoughts you want to discuss or share on the first 5 chapters here! As long as you post before next Sunday 8/16, you’re all caught up. In the future these discussion posts will be over the course of 10 chapters. I just thought we should start a little slow for our first week.
Happy reading!