Like a House on Fire (short story collection)

Like a House on Fire received positive reviews. In a review in Australian Book Review, Anthony Lynch praised the realism of Kennedy's stories and wrote that her "subtle, insightful renderings of character achieve great poignancy".^[2] In the New Zealand Herald, John McCrystal wrote that the collection was "short fiction at its best".^[6] Meg Whelan gave the collection 4 out of 5 stars in a review for Books+Publishing magazine, describing it as a "heartfelt and moving collection" and praising Kennedy's "evocative prose".^[7] Reviewers praised the stories Seventy-two Derwents, told from the perspective of a child witnessing her mother's abusive relationship, and Laminex and Mirrors, a story about a hospital cleaner who helps an elderly patient to defy the hospital's rules.^[2][6][7]