I feel like I’m way behind with this one, I only have just discovered Celeste Ng, while everyone is all over her recently published second novel. Lydia is dead but her family does not know this yet. Lydia is a part of a Chinese-American family living in small town USA in the 1970’s when she goes missing. What follows are her family, firstly discovering her disappearance, then her death and then trying to piece together what really happened.
This was a beautiful, enthralling and haunting read. I really did not want to put it down. I fell head first into the Lee family full of such tension, such dynamics, it was truly heart-breaking. I enjoyed reading perspectives from each of the characters set in both the past and the present. This novel tells of the struggles of being different an desperately wanting to fit it, of feeling invisible and trapped by the weight of expectations, of grief and how you are scarred by your parents.
Everything I Never Told You is life in all of it’s beauty and harsh realities. It is a book I will not forget soon and I know I will most definitely will be picking up Ng’s second novel (and soon). A beautiful, heart-wrenching novel that I would urge anyone to pick up.
