From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
Staff Pick
After you read this book, if you're a parent, be prepared to call your children and apologize for everything you've ever done.
When death rips apart the Lee family, it becomes quite clear that Marilyn and James have not been the parents they imagined themselves to be. Lydia, Nathan, and Hannah have been molded, bent, and stunted by their mom and dad, yet the Lees are far from bad parents. This is a sort of study of the myriad ways in which we damage our children while trying our best to provide structure, support, and motivation in their lives. This is also a beautifully written story about one family's experience with sudden death, and how that death affects everything they know. Ng is a great writer, and she captures all the nuances of a family on the brink of disaster. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
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 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.
Review
“Beautiful and poignant…. deftly drawn….It’s hard to believe that this is a debut novel for Celeste Ng. She tackles the themes of family dynamics, gender and racial stereotyping, and the weight of expectations, all with insight made more powerful through understatement. She has an exact, sophisticated touch with her prose. The sentences are straightforward. She evokes emotions through devastatingly detailed observations.” — Cleveland Plain-Dealer
Review
“The emotional core of Celeste Ng’s debut is what sets it apart. The different ways in which the Lee family handles Lydia’s death create internal friction, and most impressive is the way Ng handles racial politics. With a deft hand, she loads and unpacks the implications of being the only Chinese American family in a small town in Ohio.” — Kevin Nguyen, Grantland
Review
“A subtle meditation on gender, race and the weight of one generation’s unfulfilled ambitions upon the shoulders — and in the heads — of the next… Ng deftly and convincingly illustrates the degree to which some miscommunications can never quite be rectified.” — San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“Tender and merciless all at once…Vital in all the essential ways.” — Jesmyn Ward
Review
"If we know this story, we haven’t seen it yet in American fiction, not until now… Ng has set two tasks in this novel’s doubled heart — to be exciting, and to tell a story bigger than whatever is behind the crime. She does both by turning the nest of familial resentments into at least four smaller, prickly mysteries full of secrets the family members won’t share… What emerges is a deep, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling with its place in history, and a young woman hoping to be the fulfillment of that struggle. This is, in the end, a novel about the burden of being the first of your kind — a burden you do not always survive." — Alexander Chee, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
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 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.
About the Author
Celeste Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She attended Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and son.