Title: Everything I Never Told You
Author: Celeste Ng
# Pages: 298
Published: June 2014
Rating: 4 stars
This is another book I read for a book club that I may not have chosen to read on my own. That’s why book clubs are great, right? I’ll tell you right now that there are no dramatic story or character arcs, no surprise ending, no story-altering revelation: this is simply the story of a normal 1970s family and their daily lives and relationships, hopes and dreams, fears and weaknesses. It pulled me in in a way I wouldn’t have expected for a story about every-day life.
Celeste Ng tells the story of a Midwestern Chinese family as they deal with the loss of their daughter. When Lydia is found dead in a nearby lake, each member of the family has to come to terms with her death, the hole she left in their lives, and the role they played in her demise.
The reader sees inside the minds of a mother, desperate for a daughter to share in her own dreams and aspirations; a father, disgusted by the piece of himself that he sees in his son; a brother, determined to protect his sister from the pain that he endures. As you delve into the story, you see inside relationships that are all too common in a family dynamic and see yourself in the disappointments and occasional successes of the characters.
Why and how did Lydia die? What brought about the death of a brilliant, successful, popular girl? This subtle commentary on a 1970s family shows not only the importance of communication in relationships–it also shows the brilliance of Celeste Ng as a writer.
Favorite Quotes:
The things that go unsaid are often the things that eat at you–whether because you didn’t get to have your say, or because the other person never got to hear you and really wanted to.
You loved so hard and hopes so much and then you ended up with nothing. Children who no longer needed you. A husband who no longer wanted you. Nothing left but you, alone, and empty space.
How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because of Lydia’s mother and father, because of her mother’s and father’s mothers and fathers.