Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because of Lydia’s mother and father, because of her mother’s and father’s mothers and fathers.”- Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng 

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.

This was another book I had a hard time rating. I'm not really sure why- it was well-written, the family dynamics and the characters were fascinating, and it was hard to put down. I read it all in one sitting because I kept telling myself "just one more chapter" until there were no more chapters left. The thing is, though, it wasn't necessarily because I found the book especially great. It was because reading this book felt like I was watching a trainwreck. I spent most of the book feeling horribly depressed by just how dysfunctional this family was. I guess unlike other books I usually have a hard time giving ratings to, I knew it would be on the higher end of the scale, but I couldn't decide on whether to give it a 7, 8, or 9 or anything in between.

Ng has an almost unmatchable skill when it comes to crafting family dynamics, especially miserable ones. Frequently, the famous opening line of Anna Karenina called to mind- "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.". Because this family was unique in that it was so different from almost every single book about a dysfunctional family I had ever read. Well, except the mother's storyline- she reminded me of Edna from The Awakening. I couldn't bring myself to actually hate any member of this family. Instead, I found myself pitying all of them. Even the ones I didn't particularly like, like the parents. I understand that both meant well, but they didn't realize that they were destroying their children. I had more sympathy for the father, who seemed more so like he actually loved the children than the mother did- she only really cared for Lydia, it seemed like, and I could also relate to his isolation and loneliness a lot more than I could to the mother's reasonings, but I couldn't bring myself to truly like his character when he started his affair and all that. 

I think my favorite characters were Nath and Hannah. Both of them were in desperate need of a hug and new parents. One scene in particular broke my heart- when Nath brings his mother his folder full of astronauts, hoping for her approval, and she blows him off in favor of his sister. And Hannah! Little Hannah who was ignored throughout the entire book, who saw everything, who just wanted to be loved by her brother and sister and parents. The way the parents treated them made it even more hard to actually like them like I liked Nath and Hannah. Not to mention that I just took to both their personalities. Hannah endeared herself to me from the start, and I loved the protectiveness Nath often felt towards Lydia. They didn't have the perfect relationship, but they felt real. All of the children deserved better parents than the ones they got.

But I don't know. Something held me back from totally loving this book. Maybe it's because I wasn't thrilled with the ending. I thought it ended a bit too neatly, kind of like the ending of Crime and Punishment. I suppose one could argue that Ng realized that this book just was so hopelessly depressing and this family just felt so dysfunctional and even incompatible that she had to figure out some way to end it so it didn't totally seem like a complete trainwreck so she had to make it so a lot of the problems in the book were fixed by the end. She had to give us that happy ending, in far fewer words. I could also see that maybe she was worried about her book being perceived as being against racial intermarriage and especially having mixed-race children so she had to make the father and mother fix their marriage. I admit, too, that that's also where I thought this book was going a few times, and wasn't too thrilled by it. I mean, I did notice that the author did marry and have a child with a white man so I did think it wouldn't be in her best interests to write a book where that was her main message, but still. 

Kind of a minor note, but I wish the relationship (for lack of a better word) between Jack Wolff and Nath was developed more and not just briefly touched upon, but I can also understand Ng's hesitation to veer too much away from the main plot. Still, I wish she didn't just tease us with that. 

At the end of the day, I did enjoy this book, though it left me kind of depressed. And thankful for my own parents, who may drive me crazy sometimes but at least they never forced their own demons onto me or my sister. I am also tempted to recommend this book to some people who regularly complain about how much their parents do things like this, because hopefully they will find that this book is something they can relate to. This book also made me really want to pick up more along the same lines. Suddenly, I really want to read more books about family dynamics.

8.5 out of 10