Everything I Never Told You

EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU BY: CELESTE NG I first read, "Everything I Never Told You," when it was first published in 2014. I wanted to re-read it to see if it still was worthy of the five stars that I had rated it back then and it was. I have read "Little Fires Everywhere," and watched its miniseries produced by Hulu. In both novels Celeste Ng captures beautifully dysfunctional family dynamics. I loved both books and I would encourage you to watch the miniseries of "Little Fires Everywhere," because it is excellent and varies a little from the book. The acting is incredible. In both novels Celeste Ng explores how parents expectations of their children is the catalyst for a tragic outcome that they never expected. Also, in both novels that unexpected heartbreak is told to the reader in the very beginning. Since this is a review for "Everything I Never Told You," I will focus on that one. The setting is during the 1970's which makes, "Everything I Never Told You," a historical novel, but I still think that the themes within that are so expertly explored are still relevant today. Celeste Ng crafted a realistic depiction of the discrimination that Asian Americans still face today. This novel in my humble opinion is even more heartbreaking because the beginning lines tell the story of every parents' worst nightmare. The title is pitch perfect for what ensues during flashbacks of how the Chinese American family of the Lee's ended up in the incredibly sad position that they now face. It is not a spoiler to say that the beginning sentence tells that the middle child of three in this family is dead. The reason why I have included it in this review is because it is stated in the synopsis of this novel. Over the course of reading you will discover how this happened. Was it murder? By reading you will easily figure out what happened to Lydia. This one remains my favorite perhaps because of how it does a great job of the character development and the question of what if? You will not be disappointed in this deep dive of how it examines the cost of weighing what can result if you want a better life for your child and you pick a favorite child who you want to do and have all of the things that you didn't have. Is being the favorite more helpful or harmful to the child who you as a parent pin all of your hopes and dreams that you in your own life didn't achieve? If only? It is a question that will haunt you as you read this UNFORGETTABLE, but realistic story that centers on one family's struggles to reconcile one of life's toughest consequences. It did affect me just as powerfully as the first time I read it and I would rate it Five sparkling and bright stars and it is absolutely perfectly written. I wouldn't change a thing. Highly, Highly Recommended!

I had no grand plans to read Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. At some point toward the end of last year I stumbled upon a review that said the book was worth reading and I immediately downloaded a copy to my Kindle. While I won’t tell you that the story changed my life, it’s one of the few books I’ve read lately that I literally didn’t want to put down and as such I finished it in two days. I’m writing this review in advance of having my own baby, so as I was reading I couldn’t help but think of the implications when parents force their own unfulfilled dreams on their children. Well, not their children. Their “favorite” child. Children aim to please, as Lydia did, until something cracks and they realize that doing the things their parents were unable to do is a weight that no child should have to bear alone. I felt genuine sympathy for every character in this book, and think it’s a testament to Celeste Ng’s deft writing style that all of the main characters were actually fleshed out quite well. Despite the fact that the book opens with the death of Lydia, we even get to know her as we piece together the events that lead to her death. What was also interesting, I thought, is that this book is less about the grief that the family dealt with in the wake of Lydia’s death, but more about the lives they all lead beforehand and whether or not her death will tear them apart as a family unit. Overall I would give Everything I Never Told You 3.5 stars. I found the story really engrossing and I’m a fan of Ng’s writing style, though I’m not sure the book will stick with me all that long. That being said, I highly recommend picking this book up if you’re looking for a quick read. Personally, I’m already looking forward to Ng’s next book… whenever that may be!

This book is filled with sadness, with longing for love, of what might have been, what could have been or should have been. I heartily disliked Marilyn and James Lee who favor Lydia, their middle child, while they ignore oldest child, Nath, and youngest child, Hannah. These parents treat these two as if they don't matter. As the book continues, I kind of begin to see their way of looking at life, somewhat. James and Marilyn meet at college, both excellent, dedicated students. Marilyn has her heart set on being a doctor. She and James have an affair, James is so different than any man she has ever met. She becomes pregnant, so the two marry. Son, Nath, is born. Marilyn didn't want to be a doctor bad enough or she wouldn't have let this happen. But she loves James, she would have married him no matter what. Her divorced mother disowns her. Doris says her marriage to an Oriental isn't right. But for many years, Marilyn looks at women doctors and remembers that could have been her. James, a Chinese born in the United States, goes to a school in Iowa, the only Chinese student. His parents work at the school, his father a handiman, his mother a cook. He always felt out of place, never fitting in, being ashamed of his heritage. The children, Nath and Hannah look Chinese. Lydia has her father's black hair, but her mother's blue eyes. She looks very much like her mother, very Caucausion. James wants his daughter to be popular, for her peers to like her. He tells her continually to smile, to speak nicely to people, tells her ways to make others like and approve of her. James is never popular, well liked. He is a history professor in a small town college in Ohio, has tried to get a professor's job at a major university. He feels he is discriminated against because he is an Oriental. Marilyn has never cared about being popular and well liked. After Lydia's death, he has an affair with a young woman, Louisa Chen, his teaching assistant. This is the kind of woman he should have married he thinks. Lydia's mother wants her to be the doctor she never was, is buying her books about medicine, enrolling her in science classes, taking her to science fairs, pushing her towards medicine. Lydia loves her mother, hates to disappoint her mom, fears her mother will run away, will desert the family. Lydia turns sixteen and is tired of having to be somebody she is not and doesn't want to be. This this book is about another dysfunctional family and is filled with pain, with characters who want to love each other, especially Hannah, but don't know how to let others know. James feels inferior because he is Chinese. The book begins in the 50's with parents in school, continues until 1977. Have things changed since then? Let's hope so. The writing is sharp, good, detailed, beautiful writing. However, the book is too bleak and painful. The characters don't know each other nor do they want to. I feel sorry for the children for having such terrible parents, for not allowing them to be the characters they need to be and want to be. This book is so sad. A story of a marriage that never should have been. Of the cast of characters Marilyn is the worse, not knowing what she wants out of life and insisting her daughter, Lydia , be the person her mother always wanted to be.

I LOVE THIS BOOK. This story is so well written that I was emotionally invested in the characters and story immediately. I found myself on edge wanting to know what was going to happen and discover the mystery revealing itself on the pages. Celeste has a way of pulling you into the story so deeply that you feel as though you are part of it. It’s a read in one sitting type of book!

Yes, it's a lot of detailed misery of a dysfunctional family. Yes, the time shifts from one decade to another. Yes, there are some tiresome passages. However, between the lines of the obvious, what is implied but not stated, is the kernel of this wonderful story. The biracial issue controls the entire story, stated clearly and often. The ineffectual father is who he is because he too was bruised by his ethnic identity. He thought he knew best how to save his children from the same prejudice. Alas, his children were just like he was. Cowed, afraid, ashamed, and reluctant. Their mother was a disappointment to her mother. Her mother was also a lost soul. Her father left home, and Marilyn was raised by her striving, disappointed mother. In turn, Marilyn, James' wife and mother to the three children in this book, followed her mother's recipes for disaster by insisting that her daughter, Marilyn be something she could never be. She even brought the dreaded Betty Crocker from her mother's home to her home. All these losses and social alienation went from generation to generation, intentionally promulgated by each generation of parenting. I found the father's actions, James's, perfectly logical regarding Louisa Chen. James could not undo his offspring's DNA or appearance, and could not reconcile society's proclamations of their status. But with Louisa Chen, he entertained a "do-over" -- a possible future reversal. The most interesting aspect of the text and each child's subsequent actions is the pecking order of the kids to their parents. Lydia's blue eyes apparently endeared her to her brown-eyed father; the other children also had brown eyes. Lydia was capable of scholarship, but as a pariah in her all-white community, she would never have the social support to reach for academic success. The son, Nath, was expected to go to Harvard like his father, but he wanted to study the cosmos and would have preferred MIT. All these things are nothing compared to what each child wanted most... a family who accepted them for who they were. Lydia was the preferred child, Nath and Hannah were simply extras on Lydia's stage, forgotten children; so unusual that the girl (Lydia) took precedence over the boy (Nath). The beauty of this text is the actual text itself. Sentences flow like honey from suggestion to action. Similies abound, the imagery is impeccable and the inevitability is profound. There is a point quite near the end, where it felt like something very big was about to be exposed, but Ms. Ng did not drop in any surprises. The revelations were parceled out in the right time and in the right amounts, so that when something becomes known to the reader, we already expected it. This last little red herring had the potential to be an unexpected explosion that would wreck the continuum, but it did not. This brief, almost alarming potential turn extinguished itself in an unimportant detail, but lets us, as readers know that it's the little stuff, the tiniest of observations, a slip of the tongue, a misperceived gesture that make the interpretation of people's actions (in life and fiction) unpredictable. It bothered me that so many people panned this wonderful book. It is a rich, multilayered, multigenerational story that as in life, we don't rely only on actions to be affected and changed.

This book is deeply engrossing, sad, heartbreaking, and disturbing. I didn't always understand or agree with a character's logic, but at least the characters were empathetic. The short of the story is that beloved seemingly perfect daughter, Lydia Lee, beautiful, intelligent, blue eyed, daughter of a Chinese-American father and white mother, is found missing, then finally found in the bottom of the lake. The character I was most disappointed in was James Lee, Lydia's father. He had a bereft, friendless childhood, make further miserable by racism. He lost opportunities because of his race, and his inability to be more than taciturn. He should have known better, and he should have shielded his family better. James is a terrible father, and I suppose singling out Lydia, who has blue eyes, was a method of coping - and his consolation. This book to me is all about the misfortunes about forfeiting honesty. No one speaks the truth, so the worst is imagined. It is so sad to see how good intentions, ambitions, and independent opinion can be suppressed, misinterpreted, when just talking - would have made so much so clear. I know older brother, Nath, who is going to Harvard, and is protector of his sister, is going to Harvard. Lydia loved her older brother, but childish jealousy, stubbornness, and ignorant pride got in the way. Everybody ignored the youngest child, Hannah, who was all too perceptive, and did not perceive the family as unhappy, but intuitively hid. I understand Lydia's pain. The complexity of her emotions and her abject fear. She is the middle child. She didn't want pressure and attention and the adoration of her parents, but she made a promise to herself when young, and she tried to keep that promise. She does not see that her parents are barely functional as parents - their efficacy long gone. Lies are relied on, and no one is more delusional than the parents. It is Nathan and Hannah, who know the truth. There is an eloquence to Celeste Ng's writing. A starkness and nakedness, but rendered with such love, the lines read like a lovesong. It was a joy reading the book. I didn't want to take a break from it. Even when describing awful painful things, I continued to read - not just to find out what was next, but for the sheer beauty of her writing. This isn't a perfect book, but upon the first few sentences, it will ensnare. I give this book five stars, because of its creativity, beautiful writing, sincerity, dearth, and absolute bravado. This is a brave book. And I embrace its existence.

I wanted to read Everything I Never Told You since I've had such great luck with debuts this year! I wouldn't say I loved this book as much as Amazon did (they chose it as the Best Book of 2014), but I did like it a lot, even though it turned out to be a bit different than I expected. Given the book opens with this doozy, I was expecting a thriller focused on how and why Lydia is dead. "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet..." But, Everything I Never Told You is more a story of family dynamics with Lydia's death as the catalyst forcing each member to examine themselves. It's also a portrait of what it's like to be immigrants (and a multi-racial family...dad James is Chinese and mom Marilyn is white) in a town where there is not any immigrant population to speak of. James is constantly trying to fit into this very traditional community, while Marilyn is trying to escape from the type of life she promised herself she would never lead. Children Nathan and Hannah are struggling to distinguish themselves in a household where Lydia had always been the shining star. I was invested in the family dynamics angle of the story and felt incredibly sorry for the children dealing with the death of their sister more or less without the support of their parents. The themes of parents projecting their own dreams onto their children, families not openly talking about issues (i.e. pretending nothing is wrong), and foregone professional dreams of the stay-at-home mom are relatable and well explored in this story. It's a bit of a cautionary tale in this respect. Lydia's death does provide good suspense, but not in a page-turning, thriller type way. Though it's a quieter presence, I did want to know how and why Lydia died. Was it suicide? Was she murdered? Was it an accident? Was anyone else involved? Lydia's death introduces the question of how well parents really know their children. Oddly enough, this issue seems to be a running theme in my recent reading (The Fever and Reconstructing Amelia)! Given I have two young children, it's somewhat scary to think about the prospect of being on the parental end of this as they get older. Though Everything I Never Told You turned out to be a different type of book than I was expecting, I very much enjoyed it and would say that it's one of the better debuts of the year. It would also make a great book club selection, especially since it's under 300 pages! Check out my blog, Sarah's Book Shelves, for more reviews.

It is very rare that I give a read a five star rating. I have a high list of literary criteria that a book must meet before I consider this. First, the point has to be solid. There must be a story within the story. History must be included or considered in the craft to be considered complex enough for me to consider this art. There must be an emotive quality or drive both for the protagonist and characters and for the "audience". Culture richness in this world is something easily avoided in books and movies but I find when this is the case, something serious is lacking. Even if the book is fantasy, culture should exist as well as a semblance of belief, even if that belief is science. There must be believable tension. It must benefit the reader in some way. It must show perspective, contour lines AND negative space. The book should carry a level of insight. Which brings me to metaphor and irony. These are the most important. A good voice for each character/narrator and an understanding of how that voice will be understood by the reader. Vivid, clear images that stay in a person's mind. I would rather read a good book than watch a movie because the pictures are better. I should be able to say this at the end of any decent written work. Characters must have complexity and depth. Extensive research must show. We do nothing great alone including invention. Every part of any work of art carries with it some element of influence. New ideas can be built from that influence and in my mind become the very definition of art when this is achieved. The editing must be done professionally, but not necessarily by a professional and I couldn't care less where you publish. My list is much longer but this will give you some idea of what I look for in a book. Having personally lost someone in my immediate family and having that death permanently destroy the family's structure even twenty years later, I can tell Celeste Ng, has done her homework in one way or another. This book exceeds above and beyond all of my expectations and I highly recommend it. Even a realistic take on human psychology is considered in this book and I have compared it to works such as, "As I Lay Dying," by William Faulkner, where in the midst of poverty (any kind of poverty such as physical OR emotional needs) people become Islands even in a crowd. This is the reality of competing for resources. Ng points out both the love and the damage that can unfold in the midst of communication absence and emotional neglect or emotional poverty. These two chaotic events existing under one roof can only result in both pain and enlightenment. The only negative thing I have to say about this book is, there is a typo in the last chapter - a "he," where there should be a "she". It's minor, but jarring for the reader. It pulls us out of the story. It's important to double check the work of editors. Regardless, I would be honored to read anything this writer has to offer. I would probably even resort to reading her calendar if the opportunity presented itself, just for fear of missing any element of the Muse. THIS book is timeless.

Everything I Never Told You is Celeste Ng's first novel, and it's an exceptionally accomplished one. Set in 1970s Ohio and beginning with the disappearance and death of Lydia, the teenage middle child in the mixed race Lee family, Everything I Never Told You is a delicately crafted story of the expectations and regrets of parents and children, about being different and wanting to fit in, and about fitting in and wanting to be different. The story is partly told in flashback and partly in the present during the aftermath of Lydia's death, from the points of view of each family member, including Lydia herself. Lydia, it's acknowledged by her siblings Nathan and Hannah, is their parents' favourite, and as such, has become a sort of conduit through which both her father and mother are determined to see their own regrets and mistakes put right. It's essential for James, her Chinese-American father, that she will fit in, have friends, be accepted socially in a way he never has been. Marilyn, her white mother - disowned by her own mother in turn for choosing a Chinese husband - is desperate for Lydia to fulfil her own thwarted dreams of becoming a doctor, rejecting the path of marriage and children that is still traditional in the novel's 1970s setting. I have seen Everything I Never Told You described as a literary thriller, but I wouldn't really classify it as that. It's true that Lydia was last seen before her mysterious disappearance with Jack Wolff, well-known as the local bad boy, and that Nathan is convinced this must be significant, but the actual explanation of Lydia's death is secondary to the sensitively-written exploration of the Lee family's troubled states of mind. Objects acquire deep significance, symbolising the family's unspoken resentments and anxieties: an all-American Betty Crocker Cookbook, for instance, or a broken locket. Hannah's room is full of small belongings stolen and hidden from the rest of the family, as if she - almost entirely ignored - has become the curator of their repressed concerns. Lydia's shelves are full of diaries, and yet when they are opened in the days following her death, they prove to be completely blank. Not only can the Lee family not be open with each each other, it seems that they can't even bear to be honest with themselves. Everything I Never Told You is an understated, quiet sort of novel, primarily introspective. Tensions are buried and resentment unexpressed - none of the Lees ever seem able to confront each other, and neither do they ever seem to confront anyone for the constant racism they face, at school, at work, on holiday. I found this book almost painfully sad at times - yet there is, as it draws to a conclusion, a sense of hope for the future that comes as something of a relief.

This is a beautifully sad piece of writing. Upon finishing it, I felt a need to just reflect on life and ask myself a few questions. It truly stirred me within. There is a great deal within the pages of this book for people from all sorts of backgrounds and circumstances to relate to. So much humanity.

J'ai beaucoup aimé la lecture de ce livre sur une famille qui n'est pas heureuse, dont on suit le parcours sur deux lignes temportelles. C'est facile à lire, on s'attache aux personnages même ceux les moins aimables, on veut connaitre la fin.. Après little fires everywhere, encore un bon livre. J'attends le 3eme de Celeste Ng, que je commanderai avec plaisir.

As a reader, you want so desperately to turn back time for the Lee family, you get pulled into their world and wish for them to finally open their hearts and say what they are thinking....this is what a good writer can do.

Qualidade excelente e entrega rápida.