Friday, December 26, 2014

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Everything I NeverTold You by Celeste Ng

We know Lydia is dead from the first page, but we witness her family discover she is missing, learn she is dead and then deal (or not deal) with their grief.  Lydia, the middle child of the Lee family, was the favorite child.  Each family member has a different picture of Lydia, each thinks they know her, but we learn that no one really knew her.

We meet the family in the seventies as the two eldest children are in high school.  The Lee’s are a multi-racial couple (he is first generation Chinese-American, she is Caucasian).  Today no one would bat an eye, but then in rural Ohio the Lee children are the only non-Caucasians in their school.  Lydia is under pressure from both parents to succeed where they believed they failed in their lives but she feels she needs to hide what she thinks her parents will see as faults. 

I was expecting a thriller, but this was more a study of a family in crisis.  Lydia is a complex character, living her life for others more than herself.  The end hits hard because the reader learns everything Lydia hasn’t told anyone else because she never got the chance.