Izzy Richardson

### Relatives

Elena Richardson (mother), Bill Richardson (father), Trip Richardson (brother), Moody Richardson (brother), Lexie Richardson (sister)

## Physical description

### Gender

Female

Isabelle "Izzy" Richardson is the daughter of Elena Richardson and one of the main characters of the novel *Little Fires Everywhere*.

### Before the Novel

Before the events of the novel, Izzy is the same person as seen in the very beginning of the novel. She is shown as an angry person, who will always defend what she believes in, and hates following rules. At one point, while on stage for a dance recital her mother forced her to go to, she writes the words "NOT YOUR PUPPET" on her forehead and stands there, refusing to dance.

### The Beginning

In the beginning of the novel, Ng introduces Izzy's character through her brother, Moody's, opinion of her. Moody describes her as self-confident and apathetic to other people's opinions of her.

> "For Izzy, it was even simpler: she didn't care what people thought of her." – Chapter 3
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Ng shows us that Moody is really the only person that has a good opinion of Izzy in her family. Her other siblings are shown to thing that she is a "lunatic," while her father is not shown to have any sort of powerful opinion. Her mother, of all her family members, is shown to have the worst relationship with her daughter.

> "Izzy. Her harebrained live wire of a daughter, the perpetual overreactor, prone to fits of furious indignation about nothing at all." – Chapter 8
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In chapter 7, Izzy meets Mia for the first time while complaining about her teacher. Mia, not knowing her, asks her what's she's going to do about this problem of hers, and later gives her an idea for what she's truly going to do as her "revenge" plan against this teacher.

After this moment, Izzy starts to stay around Mia more, looking up to her as a role model. She helps her with her photography as best as she can and clearly just wants to be loved by Mia. Mia is a person Izzy clearly looks up to, wanting to become just like her. Mia Warren discovered herself in her art a long time ago, and Izzy wants to follow in her footsteps.

## Themes

### Identity

Izzy Richardson is a prime example of the theme of identity within this novel. Throughout the novel, she begins to discover who she truly is. She finds herself outside of where she grew up, where things were strict, and rigid, and *planned*. Mia Warren acts as her role model, showing her what she could have outside of her pre-planned community in Shaker Heights. She searches for her own identity, free of her family and their expectations.

### Belonging

Along with her path toward discovering her identity, Izzy Richardson also searches for a place where she can belong. She realizes that within her family, she simply does not. She is the furthest from belonging within a family who seems to hate her. She finds a place where she can belong with Mia Warren, who accepts her for who she is, no matter her flaws, as well as Pearl Warren. She finds herself wishing that she could have Mia as a mother instead of Elena, who always treated her as if she were a stain on her family. In the end, she searches for her own belonging, far from her family.