Book Review: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

My Book Retreat

Everything I Never Told Youby Celeste Ng is the story of a family that cannot seem to talk to one another and share their true thoughts and feelings. This lack of communication results in many tragedies, some small and some massive. The novel begins with the death of the teenage daughter of the family, Lydia. The rest of the novel mostly revolves around the family trying to understand her death, and the ramifications of her death on each of them.

I thoroughly enjoyed Everything I Never Told You. It’s a tragic story, but not depressing. It addresses the struggles of mixed-race children in the 1970s and earlier, the impact of a parent’s past experiences on their children, and the effect of focusing on one child to the detriment of the others. The story unfolds through the perspective of different members of the family, which helps the reader to feel more connected to each of them and know what they were thinking since they don’t speak their true feelings out loud.