The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere. “A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense.” —O, the Oprah Magazine“Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family.” —Entertainment Weekly“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 … 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.
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I loved this novel and understand why it has received so much critical praise. I found myself unable to stop reading as I wanted to understand the reasons behind the child’s mysterious death that leads off the story. However its rich exploration of parental pressure and growing up feeling different are what gives this book depth, and makes it so memorable and resonant.
An incredible debut novel! This is such a powerful and moving look at how even the slightest misunderstandings can have an enormous impact on our closest relationships. Once you read the first page, it’s nearly impossible to turn yourself away from these flawed, tragic characters.
Great writing – every sentence in this book feels well-crafted and considered. We know in the first sentence that the daughter is dead – so the book is not a murder mystery. Instead, it digs deep into the why of her death by way of each family member. It’s honest, thought-provoking, and devastating. Beyond the racial dimensions of the story, the tensions of one person living through another is thoroughly relatable, and the struggles of outsiders in any realm feel heard here.
@lisad Agree with you that it’s more literary family drama than thriller. @Nadia We have the same bookish preoccupations!
This novel is about ripples; cause-and-effect. A young, biracial woman is found drowned in small-town, 1970’s Ohio — and the story slowly unwinds the events leading up to her death, and the shockwaves once her body has been found.
It is a devastating and thoughtful exploration family dynamics, unfulfilled dreams, and the feeling of “otherness.” The story is told in what felt like vignettes, from a multitude of perspectives: little flashbacks from elementary school; short, impactful conversations between father and daughter; a regretful mother’s quiet moments of reflection. I loved it, and wished I had read this one sooner.
I just finished listening to this on audiobook! I read Eng’s latest book, Little Fires Everywhere, before this one and it’s hard to say which I liked better. Both revolve around the secrets within families, but I think this book resonated in a different way. As someone who comes from two different cultures (and whose parents also met in the 70s), this book felt hauntingly close to home. I thought Eng did a masterful job of gently shifting between the perspectives of her characters — especially as an audiobook listen, the transition from one character’s thoughts to the another’s felt nearly indistinguishable. To me, that seamlessness echoed the struggle of the Lee children: How can you be close to your family and at the same time, distinguish yourself from them and become your own person?
Just read Everything I Never Told You on plane ride #1 of 6 this month.
I loved it! I’ve seen it on many thriller lists, and while the plot does surround a teen’s untimely death, it was definitely more of a literary family drama. Despite being different than what I thought it’d be, I didn’t mind at all because the pacing was good. Ng also did a nice job of getting into each family members’ head without ever using the first person.
Anyone else read this one? What’d you think?
I read Everything I Never Told You quite recently and think it would make an excellent beach read. Some might say that reading about a drowning while so close to large body of water is a weird choice, but really, drowning is such a nice summery way to die if you, like me, prefer your books with suspicious deaths in them.
This book contained a number of my favorite bookish preoccupations: suburbia, middle class discontent, racial awkwardness, loners, and — that’s right Bubbers — family secrets. Plus it’s beautifully written, meaning easy to consume while lying sleepily in the sunshine, and on the shorter side, so won’t take up too much room in your beach bag. What more could you ask for?
#beachreads
I started this book with the expectation of reading a true thriller — something plot-driven and suspenseful. But like other reviewers’ mention, it definitely slants towards literary fiction (which I enjoyed). The theme of family dysfunction throughout generations was really well developed and uniquely told.
Most memorable to me is Ng’s writing style. She switches the point of view from paragraph to paragraph, which sounds as though it could be distracting, but was satisfying and helped move the book along in an efficient and interesting way.
I’d recommend this book, and look forward to reading Ng’s most recent release Little Fires Everywhere .
A different kind of who dunnit. Lots of dysfunctional family issues wrapped up in a neat easy read. Mixed race family ( I can relate) and the emotional roller coaster of siblings, relationships and growing up. The book opens with the death of a teenager so you spend the entire book guessing, analyzing, and expecting to outwit the author’s surprise ending. Quick read! Can you guess who dunnit?
I picked up this book after reading Little Fires Everywhere and really enjoyed it. Though Everything I Never Told You is centered around the drowning of a teenage girl, at the end of the day both books are about family dynamics. Ng shows us that being part of a family is difficult and that we never truly know what anyone else is dealing with.
This is an emotionally powerful and suspenseful (albeit kind of bleak) story about the missing daughter of a biracial couple. It’s a story with several layers: the immigrant experience, racism, parental pressure, overachievement, marriage, and the parent-child relationship (namely the power a parent has over a child). This is the kind of book that makes you think after you’ve turned the last page, or want to talk to someone about.
Excellent book exploring grief and its impact on a family.
“Everything I Never Told You” by Celeste Ng novel opens on May 3, 1977 with the disheartening first sentence, “Lydia is dead.” The balance of the book tells the story of how the family got to that day. Marilyn and James Lee along with and children Lydia, Nathan, and Hannah are the only Chinese family in this medium-sized Ohio town in northern Ohio where James teaches at the local college. Ng created characters with purpose. Their stories are ones of isolation, disenfranchisement, and solitude. Backstories fill in details as individual family members struggle with finding a role in the family and in a community where everyone knows one is different by just looking. Personalities come out in conversations as story moves along to that day in May.
An interesting participant in the book is not a person but the Betty Crocker Cookbook. Marilyn’s memories of her mother center on that cookbook and its advice to homemakers of the time. Marilyn wants more than to marry just a Harvard man, but that is what she did. Her daughter has a different view of the book and its significance.
“Everything I Never Told You” is easy to read, but its implications are far reaching. The Lee family reflects the atmosphere and attitudes of the time. Some things have changed since 1977, but many things remain the same
This book resonated with me on many levels, culturally and emotionally, since I’m Vietnamese American and my husband is American. Our children are now independent and successful adults, but I could still feel the visceral anguish and challenges while raising them in junior high, high school, and even college. As parents, I had to refrain from wishing our kids to be an extension of ourselves, to live out our dreams and aspirations, instead, letting them build their dreams and life. A must-read for anyone for Ms. Ng’s exquisite storytelling, although difficult emotionally at times, but it’s a necessary read for parents or soon to become one. I also highly recommend Little Fires Everywhere.Little Fires Everywhere and Catfish and Mandala.Catfish and Mandala
I listened to this book on audio and this is my first 5 star book of the year although it was written in 2014. I have since read Little Fires Everywhere by this author which I loved. I usually write short reviews on audiobooks but this book deserves more.
It’s been a long time since I have had such a visceral reaction to a book. After I finished I had a terrible urge to call each of my four daughters and ask them if I ever made them feel unappreciated, unloved or pushed to hard to do something. For this is what this story is truly about, parents who are trying to live through their child’s life, the things that they themselves wanted and failed to achieve.
We start out during a breakfast moment when the family of James Lee, Marilyn, Nath and Hanna notice that their sister Lydia has not come down for breakfast. After much searching, phone calling, combing the area, the police finally find her body at the bottom of a very nearby lake. Her parents are shocked, they were totally clueless as to their daughters unhappiness, partly because she chose to put on a cloak of normality and happiness for their favor. We then shift to the story being told by each of the family members.
James Lee is an American born Chinese American who in this 1970’s time period had felt discrimination all of his life. He had received a scholarship to Harvard and his was a lonely time at school, where he was never accepted by this mostly white, economically privileged student body.
As a professor of English history he meets Marilyn whom he chooses as his teaching assistant, falls in love with and marries. He is not a bad man, he is not a cruel man, but he tries to help his children, in his own way, to rise above the prejudice that they are sure to endure. He feels that the secret to this is to this is to excel in academics and “try to fit in”, “make friends” and get involved in other school activities, only the first of which he ever achieved.
Marilyn is a Radcliff student who is determined not to end up like her mother, a homemaker, unhappy and racist woman. Marilyn views James as someone exotic and so unlike the other boys that have pursued her. She gets involved with James and soon they are romantically entwined and believe that they are in love. They marry, against her mother’s wishes, and begin their life in a small town in rural Ohio where James will teach at the college. This is probably the biggest mistake that they make, as their children will never fit into this small, all white town where prejudice is high. Marilyn gets pregnant with Nath and soon accepts her role as homemaker, particularly when another child, Lydia comes along. At one point in the story Marilyn decides to leave her family and go back to school, that is until she discovers that she is pregnant with their third, unplanned and pretty much unwanted third child. Later she pins all of her hopes on Lydia living the life that she didn’t get to have, she wants her daughter to be a doctor.
Lydia is the golden child, beautiful though exotic looking, very bright and in the beginning very social. As Lydia gets to high school she knows that she will never be accepted by this all white student body even though attempts are make to plan trips to the movies, etc. She is constantly under pressure, particularly from her mother, to excel academically and by her father to make friends, try to fit in, etc. We learn just how desperate she is to first please them and then escape from them. Her only help is her brother Nath whom she tells all of her problems and hurts. Then Nath is accepted to Harvard and she knows he will soon go away, the thought of being in the home without him as a buffer is more than she can bear.
Hannah is such a quiet child, given slight attention by her parents. She accepts any scraps of affection that she gets from her siblings, mother and father. But she sees and hears more than they know.
I was left in the end wondering how this family will now survive without Lydia. I continually wondered why they didn’t move to a more integrated community to spare their children the prejudice that they face every day. This is the one thing that bothered me the most, knowing how difficult it had to be from a mixed race family in the 70’s, why did they choose a small, all white community?
This book was masterfully written and made me feel so much sadness for the children, even for the parents as they seemed to be so sure that they were doing the right thing for their daughter.
This is a book not to be missed. Since I listened to the audiobook which was told in the four voices, I’m not sure how the book reads but the audio version is excellent and I highly recommend this book to everyone!
I so enjoy reading a book that is different from anything else I’ve ever read, and EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU certainly fit the bill. The characters were so realistic, and I wanted to love them and be angry with them all at the same time. I also loved that we didn’t find out what happened to Lydia until the very last minute. My only challenge that was it flowed between points of view and time periods so fluidly that I often lost the thread of what was happening.
Excellent read….story was addictive
This is an absolute gem of a novel. Sadness, loss, and the weight of expectations tear an interracial family apart until after the loss of favourite daughter Lydia, the search for the truth behind her days becomes cathartic. The language is hauntingly beautiful.
4.5 stars. I loved so much about this book. The character development, the mystery surrounding Lydia’s death, the characters themselves, despite the fact they were deeply flawed. I enjoyed that it took place in the sixties and seventies, giving insight into what life had to be like for a mixed Chinese American family at the time. The only thing I found lacking in this book was the disorganized nature of the chapters—the author volleyed between characters and time frames so often that you really had to concentrate on what was going on.
It seems like it’s going to be more of a murder mystery, and it is, but not the regular kind. Great opening line. I liked it this novel a lot. But like other reviewers, I found it bent more toward literary fiction. Not very suspenseful. But beautifully written and I felt for the characters. She is a very talented writer.