Celeste Ng's fiction novel Everything I Never Told You is a suspenseful read about death, abandonment, and secrets. It is the 1970s, and the Lee family lives in a small town in Ohio. James and Marilyn wake up one morning to find their oldest daughter Lydia missing. They were shocked, “‘She wouldn’t just leave,’ Marilyn says” but they did not know their daughter as well as they thought (Ng 15). Life for the Lee family was never easy, they were the only Chinese family and interracial couple in their town. This has always been difficult for their family.
Marilyn had wished to become a doctor but had yet to achieve her goal because she met James, fell in love, and had kids. Now that her children Nath and Lydia were no longer babies she wanted to make her dreams come true. The stress and life of a family were so overwhelming Marilyn thought it would be best if she left, abandoning her family to accomplish her desire. After a couple of months of studying Marilyn realizes “‘I think I’m pregnant…’” and knows she must return to her family (Ng 149). The Lee family quickly became a family of 5, their third child being Hannah. Marilyn has now accepted that it is too late for her to be successful, but it is not too late for Lydia. Nath has always been intelligent and bound for Harvard, but Marilyn was set on her oldest daughter being her greatest achievement. Lydia was forced into hard classes, but the most difficult was physics. Lydia was failing, she couldn’t do it her parents pushed her but she wasn’t the only one struggling.
The Lee's neighbor Jack was in Lydia’s physics and had also been failing, and the two bonded over their lack of care. Lydia and Jack were now spending their time together and Lydia quickly caught feelings. One day she kissed Jack but he revolted informing Lydia he had been in love with someone else for a while now, her brother Nath. Lydia couldn’t believe it, she thought they hated each other. That night Lydia had trouble sleeping so she went outside to the lake across from her home, but she never learned to swim. She got in the small row boat and paddled to the middle of the lake where she jumped into the water. It was all too much for her, the pressure of her parents and Jack having feelings for her brother that she thought it would be best if she let herself go. The loss of Lydia tore the Lee family apart. James had been cheating on Marilyn with his assistant Lousia and Marilyn had been locked up in Lydia’s room for days. Eventually, the family was able to turn their grief into connectedness, James and Marilyn saw the family they still had in front of them and reconciled with one another.
While reading this suspenseful novel I was intrigued by the way Ng had formatted it. Although sometimes difficult to follow the plot of the story, I found it complex how each chapter switched from past to present leading up to the ultimate cause of the Lee family's breakdown. If you enjoy a book with many plot twists and the struggles of family pressure and secrets then I would recommend this thrilling story to you. This can be a triggering read for many because of the topic of suicide but I feel it is an important read for teenagers to understand the concepts of pressure. I felt emotional multiple times throughout the story although it was fiction, knowing that this is a real issue for many teens and possibly even those around me. Overall, I enjoyed this novel and hope that if you choose to indulge in this pivoting read it too alters your perspective on the hardships of being a teen.
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