Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.
So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.
A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
MY THOUGHTS / REVIEW
Lee family’s middle and the favourite child, ‘Lydia’, is dead - we literally start ‘Everything I Never Told You’ with this sad piece of information. And that sets the tone of the overall book perfectly well, because things get sadder as we delve further into the story.
Going into the book I expected a mystery/ thriller book with a strange family dynamics in the mix, but it was completely the other way around. This book gets deep into the mind of this Chinese-American family, and we get to know everything about them - from the background of James & Marilyn (the parents), to how they met and how their childhood shaped them into the way they are now and how it affects the relationship with their children.
I had a very hard time liking the parents. I can understand their background, their interracial marriage and how hard things had to be in the 1950s for them, but the ignorant way they treated their children just made me a little angry and sad. Lydia, the favourite child is burdened under the expectations of her parents, while they completely ignored their oldest son Nath and youngest daughter Hannah. It was so hard to see all three siblings and coping with things in their own way. That was the most depressing part for me to read, seeing their hopes, dreams and love for their parents.
Overall, it was an emotional, sad yet a realistic and a little hopeful read. I really liked the writing style of Celeste Ng. Her character development was on point and realistic and I felt somehow connected to this family.
This was my introduction of Ng, and I will definitely read more books by her in future!
OVERALL RATING : 4.25/5
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