Recent Waching: Little Fires Everywhere

Today I finished the Hulu original Little Fires Everywhere. This is a miniseries based on the book by Celeste Ng. Hulu summarizes the show as follows:

Little Fires Everywhere follows the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and an enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. Based on Celeste Ng’s 2017 bestseller, the story explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger in believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

There are a lot of themes in this miniseries including:

• motherhood, including surrogate motherhood, adoption, and parental kidnapping
• teen drama: there are five main teenage characters who all seem to be sexually active
• abortion
• white privilege, racism, and the connection to class
  
• education, including suburban vs urban high schools, college admission at elite schools (Yale and Princeton)
• art, its reception, and the value of art (Kerry Washington's character goes from being working poor to suddenly able to pay a lawyer a thirty thousand dollar retainer after selling one photograph)
• LBGTQ issues, especially lesbian issues
  
• how poor immigrants, in this case a Chinese mother, are treated differently in the legal system than prosperous, good-looking white people
  
• and, as the title and promotional materials indicate, arson.

I enjoyed the show, but I don't think it was a great show. It just tried to do too much; it covered too many themes and had too many characters to really connect with all of them. 

Looking at what readers said about the book on goodreads, I think that the book has the same issues that the miniseries did.