A review by alexxm13
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

this book is a tough one but incredible, from the story to characters to writing a depth of a realistic viewpoint from several characters within the lee family
with lydia, a girl who is found dead at the lake and the reader is taken back to when her parents met, marylyn a white woman (student at uni) and james an asian man (prof at uni) where they first meet at american history teaches and from here we get to see why james decides to teach this subject as he grew up being bullied for being asian and an outsider to society with the only one being the odd one out. As they grow into a romantic relationship after marylyn quits uni to be with james and have nath, the eldest marylyn quits studying to be a doctor and disobey what her mother wants her to be, successful, rich and to marry “someone who is more like her”/white but insteads marry an asian man. Their family grows and has 2 more children, lydia and hannah. With marylyn she sees lydia as herself and puts on lydia a huge amount of stress to be the person marylyn wanted for herself before “making the mistake of loving james” and with that forms the story why lydia is found dead. As marylyn disappears after giving birth to lydia as she wants to continue studying to be a doctor and goes to university again, and leaves her family she is back to her family within a couple of weeks and instead puts her dreams into lydia, who pressures herself to act like what her mum wants her to do with having the highest grades and to not fail, with having no friends, to only focus on school to make her mum happy and so she would not leave again. Meanwhile James has an affair with an asian teaching assistant at the university he works in and realised he should have married an asian so his children would not be judged at school. After lydia’s death nath blames a boy, jack who lydia hangs around but we find out that jack did not physically hurt/abused lydia but find out that he is gay and has feelings for nath but wanted lydia as a friend in hopes of being closer to nath which didn’t work out. lydia has all this pressure since she was a kid to be the best she can be for her parents without her parents considering what made her happy and with this i relate. at the end we know that after lydia and jack talk about being happy with who you are and lydia goes out to the lake to take in a new beginning for her and is happy about the future, she falls into the lake and drowns. this was the saddest bit as this was a new hope for her but this fails.
overall this book is brilliant and definitely relatable in terms of ethnicity and racism towards racism and being set in 70s i understand how all of this is very difficult for the lee family with being outsiders. both marylyn and james wanted for their kids to be successful but didn’t consider what their kids wanted which is freedom, the symbolism of the lake being free. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings