History Literature / LittleFiresEverywhere

** As well as Mia. Dragging Pearl around the country whenever she sees fit to suit her plans as an artist, despite what Pearl might want or think. And takes Pearl after the surrogacy, leaving the couple wondering what happened and why she disappeared. Not to mention this after accepting their money to support her. Arguably, her selfishness is what created most of the schisms in the plot.

* TriangRelations:
** Type 4 in the book: Pearl and Trip have an affair, and neither is aware of Moody's feelings for Pearl.
** Type 9 in the series: Trip is aware of Moody's feelings for Pearl and feels guilty about his own, even telling her so, but they have an affair anyway.

* AbortionFalloutDrama: [[spoiler:Lexie]] has an abortion after getting pregnant with [[spoiler:her boyfriend's]] baby so they can go to college. She is shown to have very mixed feelings, but the people who learn about it don't tell her it was wrong.

** Mia herself is not exempt from this either, since she forced poor Pearl to constantly move from city to city with no opportunity to adapt to any school and make meaningful friendships, essentially force her to lead a minimalist and poor lifestyle to indulge her artistic desires [[spoiler:and also to hide from her the fact that she is fled with the child, instead of giving her to the couple for whom she was acting as a surrogate]]. Not to mention that the whole reason she reveals to Bebe that May Ling was adopted by Linda and Mark as Mirabelle and urges her to fight for the custody so much (at the cost of her own daughter's friendship with the Richardsons) is because she projects so much on them her own family situation.

** Mia herself is not exempt from this either, since she forced poor Pearl to constantly move from city to city with no opportunity to adapt to any school and make meaningful friendships, essentially force her to lead a minimalist and poor lifestyle to indulge her artistic desires [[spoiler:and also to hide from her the fact that she is fled with the child, instead of giving her to the couple for whom she was acting as a surrogate]]. Not to mention that the whole reason she reveals to Bebe that May Ling was adopted by the McCulloughs as Mirabelle and urges her to fight for the custody so much (at the cost of her own daughter's friendship with the Richardsons) is because she projects so much on them her own family situation.

** Elena is this ''in spades'', especially regarding her children and anything involving Mia. For example, [[spoiler:she opened Lexie's acceptance letter to Yale to know if she got in before she even arrived home]].
** When Bill confronts her about abruptly traveling to New York, she refuses to admit any wrong in it despite leaving her family alone for a few days with no warning solely so she could find information on Mia. Her husband also points out that her attempt to blackmail Mia into backing out as a witness means he, the lawyer for the defense, can now be accused of witness tampering. She's upset he's mad at her for "trying to help." She's upset that people are "blaming her" instead of Mia in the fight over the court case. During her VillainousBreakdown, what makes her snap the most? Lexie tearfully insisting she isn't perfect like Elena wants her to be. Elena's response is to brokenly scream "Yes you are!"
** Mia herself is not exempt from this either, since she forced poor Pearl to constantly move from city to city, essentially force her to lead a minimalist and poor lifestyle to indulge her artistic desires to hide from her the fact that she is fled with the child instead of giving her to the couple for whom she was acting as a surrogate. Not to mention that the whole reason she reveals to Bebe that May Ling was adopted by the McCulloughs as Mirabelle and urges her to fight custody so much (at the cost of her daughter's friendship with the Richardsons) is because she projects so much on them her own family situation.

* {{Hypocrite}}: In the series Elena constantly makes a show of how she's a progressive intent on diversity in the community. Really though she can't stand anyone who won't conform to her ideals (including Mia, who's Black) or her own daughter Izzy, who's a lesbian (something Elena has clearly been in denial about because she's so unhappy with the fact). She's intent on all her kids being "perfect" by her conception, and erupts in a rage when Lexie rejects this to her face.
** She also constantly harangues Izzy about everything not being about her, despite pretty much living and breathing [[ItsAllAboutMe this trope]] herself.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Elena is this ''in spades'', especially regarding her children and anything involving Mia. For example, [[spoiler:she opened Lexie's acceptance letter to Yale to know if she got in before she even arrived home]].
** When Bill confronts her about abruptly traveling to New York, she refuses to admit any wrong in it despite leaving her family alone for a few days with no warning solely so she could find information on Mia.
** Her husband also points out that her attempt to blackmail Mia into backing out as a witness means he, the lawyer for the defense, can now be accused of witness tampering. She's upset he's mad at her for "trying to help." She's upset that people are "blaming her" instead of Mia in the fight over the court case.
** During her VillainousBreakdown, what makes her snap the most? Lexie tearfully insisting she isn't perfect like Elena wants her to be. Elena's response is to brokenly scream "Yes you are!"

** In the series, [[spoiler: Mia]] is bisexual and has a relationship with her female professor. In the novel, her sexuality is never stated, [[spoiler:
nor is her race, which is a plot point in the series]].

** In the series, [[spoiler: Mia]] is bisexual and has a relationship with her female professor. In the novel, her sexuality is never stated.

** In the novel, [[spoiler: Izzy's siblings weren't there to stop her, and she set every part of the house on fire (hence the novel's title)...except her parents' bedroom, but only because she ran out of lighter fluid. She did this with the assumption that the house was empty; had she gone into the bedroom, she would have realized her error, as her mother had slept in.]]

The novel was adapted into a series airing on Creator/{{Hulu}} in 2020, starring Creator/ReeseWitherspoon as Elena and Creator/KerryWashington as Mia.

* InnocentlyInsensitive: Lexie has a tendency to say whatever comes to mind without bothering to think of how her words can be taken, but she's not really malicious, just self-absorbed and rather spoiled. However, it may be deconstructed because Mia calls her out on how coincidental it is that Lexie uses her innocence and naivety to get it to work out exactly how she wanted it. This eventually starts putting strain on her relationship with her boyfriend, Brian.

* AdultFear:
** Quite a bit of it in the novel, such as the custody battle over the baby - her mother was forced to leave her behind, then she was adopted by total strangers who refuse to give her back.
** Elena gets a bad case of this when her actions [[spoiler: result in Izzy running away, apparently, never to be seen again.]] She'd lived through another one in the novel when Izzy was born 2 months premature, though the series subverts this when she screams that she [[spoiler: she never wanted a fourth child]].
** At the end of the series, Linda hears May Ling fussing in her crib through the baby monitor, but Mark assures her that nothing's wrong. [[spoiler:Linda was right: Bebe had broken in and taken May Ling away.]]

''Little Fires Everywhere'' is the second novel by Celeste Ng. In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother- who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town - and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost...

* BittersweetEnding:

** Shortly before this, Elena hits Mia and Pearl with an impromptu eviction, blaming them for messing up her family's cozy lives (she believed that Trip had impregnated Pearl). Mia's response? Calling Elena out for not being an attentive parent while she was busy ruining the lives of those she felt were beneath her. And for being the reason [[TheReveal ''Lexie'' felt the need to forge Pearl's name on her abortion papers.]]

* PottyFailure: The orchestra teacher in the aftermath of Izzy's prank of toothpicking all the locks on the doors in the school.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Mia becomes a lot more abrasive and fiery-tempered than she was in the book.

* CondescendingCompassion: Every "compassionate" thing Elena does, from offering the Warrens a place to live, and Mia a job, to drumming up support in the [=McCullough=]'s custody case is less about the other person and more to boost her own ego and social standing, to the point that she'll force her generosity upon the other person and becomes very offended if they turn her down.