Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Ng, C. (2014). Everything i never told you. New York, NY: Penguin.

The novel begins on the first morning of the disappearance of 16-year-old blue-eyed Lydia Lee, the much-cherished middle daughter of the biracial Lee family. They were struggling to avoid criticism in their small Ohio town due to their biracial marriage. Blonde Marilyn and Chinese-American James Lee are Lydia’s parents. Lydia’s tragic fate is told right from the beginning of the story, and the family learns it not long after, the events leading to her death remain puzzling. As the novel unfolds, Lydia must live by her parents’ high expectations as they try to live through her their own shattered dreams and hopes. James expectations for Lydia come from his previous experiences since he has been treated as an outsider due to his race, popularity and acceptance and for Marilyn, who once had to abandon her medical school plans, academic and professional success. It's difficult, even with the insights of her more perceptive siblings, to get at the real Lydia beneath the image her parents have constructed of her. It's soon discovered that Lydia has drowned in a nearby lake, in what looks like a suicide. The incident pulls the family into an emotional twister and the lack of closure unravels hidden faults in their relationships with each other. They try to figure out what she would do on her free time. Lydia's death also forces them to confront their individual insecurities and cope with their identity as a biracial family in the Midwest. This all takes place in an era when interracial marriages are only recently legal.

The themes unraveling in this novel are about expectations, about fitting in or not, being different from your classmates, a look at racial and gender prejudice, and a sensitive look at a family in crisis as they struggle to face and deal with the death of their favorite child. As James and Marilyn impose their hopes and dreams on their daughter Lydia, they cannot see what is really happening in their family. As I read the book, I could hear and imagine the thoughts and feelings of each member of the family. I know that when someone experiences a death in the family, it is natural to dwell on what is lost, instead of looking forward to what is left. This is the decision this family must make.

Many of our students that have emigrated from other countries could identify themselves with this story. They’ll make a connection to Lydia’s experiences as many of them have shared with me that their parents constantly tell them to do better in school than what they did. Some of these parents had to stop pursuing their dreams in order to move to the U.S. and provide them with a better future. Many students still struggle to fit in with their classmates. I made a connection to this book as I felt as an outsider when I first moved to the U.S. and I couldn’t fit in with my classmates due to the language barrier.

This book could reach the attention of  students ages 14 and up. If you enjoyed reading this novel, perhaps you may enjoy reading The Lovely Bones written by Alice Sebold as a family also mourns the death of their daughter and tries to figure out the mystery behind her death and how she spent her last breath before dying. Everything I never told you consists of 297 pages.