The novel is set in the 1970s, a time where mixed families are a radical concept. There’s definitely an uncomfortable resemblance that calls out to anyone, as you savor each of Ng’s carefully crafted words. Rather, I found it to be strikingly relevant to aspects of my own life from the academic pressure Lydia bore silently, to James projecting his childhood desire to fit in on his children. However, the haunting beauty of “Everything I Never Told You” does not come solely from its engaging premise. Personally, I’ve always been a sucker for psychological/thriller, where the intense page-turning pieces of the puzzles click together in my brain along with the characters. James and Marilyn drift apart with an unspoken tension hanging between them, the secrets of their past festering like open wounds. Hannah is lost, as the youngest Lee sibling who has been quietly observing from underneath tables and behind bookshelves. Nath, her 18-year old, college-bound brother, is desperate to find someone to blame. Her family, built upon a fragile pedestal of lies and truths not fully explored, completely shatters with Lydia’s death.Įach member turns away, searching for answers amidst their fractured relationships. The headlines are flooded with attention from the rare occurrence, although rumors are quick to surface about her heritage being the reason for possible suicide. In a small Ohio town, Lydia Lee, a mixed Chinese American 15-year old girl, is suddenly found dead in the lake. The plot follows a series of snapshots within the Lee family timeline, tracing history all the way back to the parents’ marriage. “Everything I Never Told You” is her debut novel published in 2014 and was named Amazon’s best book of the same year. One of my favorite new reads is a mystery/psychological fiction novel by Celeste Ng. I was ecstatic throughout the car ride home, all too busy imagining the familiar coarse pages leafing across my fingertips under the dim light of my room once again.

Thanks to the new addition curbside pickup at the Orange County public libraries, my fantasy ever-growing quarantine wishlist of books has been transformed into reality.

Everything i never told