Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

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Bibliographic Information:

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

• ISBN: 978-1594205712
• 2014 Penguin Press, London

Plot Summary:

This story is set primarily in the late 1970s in Ohio and unfolds after Lydia, the middle child in the Lee family, disappears and is found dead in a lake. As the family works through their grief, the story shows flashbacks to how they got to where they are, in a middle class suburb in Ohio. Lydia’s mother, Marilyn, is frustrated with her derailed ambitions. Marilyn had intended to become a doctor, but gave up that dream to be a devoted mother. She immerses herself in trying to solve the mystery of Lydia's disappearance. As the story goes on, Marilyn feels like she never knew her daughter. James's, Lydia’s father, flashbacks address a feeling of isolation as he copes with being a minority Asian in a suburban American community. After Lydia's funeral, we learn that James is having an affair with his assistant at the college. He considers leaving his family, but turns back to rejoin them in their joint quest to heal. Lydia’s siblings, Nathan and Hannah, each explore how they fit into their family, while searching for answers themselves. Lydia's friend Jack had a romantic interest in Nathan and that may have driven Lydia away. Nathan blames neighbor Jack for what happened. Hannah observes more than any of the others, as she figures out where the pieces of their lives fit together.

Critical Evaluation:

Celeste Ng writes a deeply moving story of 1970s suburbia as only someone who understands it could. The depiction of racism against Asian American kids in the 70s is raw and angry and realistic because Celeste Ng knows what that was like.

Ng uses flashbacks to uncover the backstory for the reader as the characters uncover their present lives. The use of flashbacks help explain the parents’ behaviors when the children did not really understand. The pain that is exposed when the reader sees that Marilyn was going to leave her family, but chose to turn back and raise her children, shows why she pushed Lydia so hard to excel. This does not excuse Marilyn’s behavior, but the reader has a grasp of why. The reader sees the devastation James feels when his son is treated unfairly on the baseball field and this explains his frustration with his lack of power in the community.

The language in the book is amazing. Ng varies her sentence length and captures readers in a story that is really special. There are four living family members learning to survive Lydia’s suicide in this story and each piece is important to the reader.

Reader’s Annotation:

Lydia is dead. Her family must live.

Author Information:

Celeste Ng is the author of the novel Everything I Never Told You  (Penguin Press), which was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and Amazon's #1 Best Book of the Year 2014. She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a family of scientists. Celeste attended Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan), where she won the Hopwood Award.  Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize.

Currently, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Retrieved from http://www.celesteng.com/about/ on 7/20/2015

Genre(s):

Adult Fiction

Curriculum Ties:

Multiculturalism

Booktalk Ideas:

Booktalks on identity, cultural, gender and sexual.

Reading level: grade 10+

Interest age: 15+

Challenge Issues:

Some Sexuality

Challenge Defense File

Why I chose this book:

This book came up on award lists from School Library Journal, Booklist, Huffington Post, and NPR, so I knew I had to read it. I picked it up and knew it was perfect for young adults, as it deals with several young adults coming to terms with their lives.