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Everything I Never Told You

by Celeste Ng
Everything I Never Told You

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780143127550
ISBN10: 0143127551
Condition: Standard


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From Powells.com

Staff Top Fives 2015

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

Publisher Comments

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.

4.2 8

What Our Readers Are Saying

Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 4.2 (8 comments)

`
Weems , February 12, 2022 (view all comments by Weems)
I found Little Fires Everywhere magnificent, and while Everything I Never Told You has a similar vision, but it somehow grabbed me less immediately, and I felt just slightly disengaged from the book. Ng has such powerful things to say about interpersonal relations around race, but this book read to me like the Goodfellas when I'd already gone through the refinement and perfection of Casino. Weird simile, I know, but Everything had all the stuff going but somehow didn't grab me in the process.

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`
Weems , February 12, 2022 (view all comments by Weems)
I found Little Fires Everywhere magnificent, and while Everything I Never Told You has a similar vision, but it somehow grabbed me less immediately, and I felt just slightly disengaged from the book. Ng has such powerful things to say about interpersonal relations around race, but this book read to me like the Goodfellas when I'd already gone through the refinement and perfection of Casino. Weird simile, I know, but Everything had all the stuff going but somehow didn't grab me in the process.

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`
Weems , February 12, 2022 (view all comments by Weems)
I found Little Fires Everywhere magnificent, and while Everything I Never Told You has a similar vision, but it somehow grabbed me less immediately, and I felt just slightly disengaged from the book. Ng has such powerful things to say about interpersonal relations around race, but this book read to me like the Goodfellas when I'd already gone through the refinement and perfection of Casino. Weird simile, I know, but Everything had all the stuff going but somehow didn't grab me in the process.

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`
dreena , June 23, 2018 (view all comments by dreena)
The sudden death of a child is every parent's nightmare. Young Lydia's unexplained death cases her siblings and parents to seek answers within themselves and their relationships with Lydia. So many things left unsaid ...so many things would have been done differently. If you are a parent, you will re-examine your relationships with your own children from a different perspective. This gut wrenching novel will stay with you long after the final page.

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`
Lindsey , January 29, 2018 (view all comments by Lindsey)
I loved this book! Weaving through a family's history from each perspective, the author touches on race, belonging, heartbreak, and the expectations we all have for our own lives. I found myself identifying with each of the characters throughout and wishing for more when I was done.

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`
Rachel Coker , October 19, 2015 (view all comments by Rachel Coker)
In "Everything I Never Told You," Celeste Ng gives us a family struggling to make sense of a devastating loss. As the story travels backward and forward through several decades, we learn about the parents' childhoods, their courtship and marriage, their children's triumphs and carefully guarded sorrows and, finally, come to understand the central mystery of the book: How did 16-year-old Lydia die? Ng's masterful flipping from one point of view to another puts the reader in a unique position to empathize with each character, from the tentative little sister to the father who has always felt like an outsider. A spectacular book, one of the best I've read this year.

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`
jadelin , August 03, 2015 (view all comments by jadelin)
A poignant story about a family and the loss and pain experienced by each member. This book is a gem.

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(3 of 4 readers found this comment helpful)
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`
selective reader , June 01, 2015 (view all comments by selective reader)
This story covers the remaining family members perspective after the loss of the middle child. It covers many things that were kept hidden that may have made a difference in the end result. You understand how important it is to be true to yourself and honest about your feelings with those closest to you.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780143127550
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
05/12/2015
Publisher:
Penguin Books
Pages:
336
Height:
.60IN
Width:
5.00IN
Thickness:
.50
Age Range:
18 and up
Grade Range:
13 and up
Author:
Celeste Ng
Subject:
Literature-A to Z

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