Everything I Never Told You in WACKY READING CHALLENGES

Mar 19, 2016 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: concierge, library, social-commentary, audio, family, book-club, ohio, literary-fiction

Audiobook performed by Cassandra Campbell.
4****

From the book jacket: “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. When Lydia’s body is found, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another

My reactions:
I love this kind of character-driven novel. Ng explores the nuance ...more

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Mar 03, 2017 Connie N. rated it liked it

Shelves: relationships, recommended, family, ohio, 1970-s, bookclub

I'd rate this 3.5 stars, but I've rounded it down because it's just so dark and depressing. We start right at the beginning with the first sentence--Lydia is dead. She's the teenage daughter of a Chinese-American family, and the favorite child of her parents. And after her death, the family basically implodes, everyone trying to understand what happened and how to adjust and move on. There's just so much unhappiness in this family. It started out warm and loving, but real life (and imagined slig ...more

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Jan 16, 2022 Hannah Peterson rated it liked it

Shelves: aty-2021

2.5 rounded up.

By 2020, I decided I was done with what I called "suburban drama" books: Big Little Lies was not bad, but I really didn't like Where'd You Go, Bernadette, or Gillian Flynn's books, or Little Fires Everywhere, for that matter. But apparently, this is not the kind of information about myself that I use to make informed future reading decisions. The problem is, I have this (mostly unsuccessful) habit of wanting to try a second book by an author if the first one didn't hit me the way 2.5 rounded up.

By 2020, I decided I was done with what I called "suburban drama" books: Big Little Lies was not bad, but I really didn't like Where'd You Go, Bernadette, or Gillian Flynn's books, or Little Fires Everywhere, for that matter. But apparently, this is not the kind of information about myself that I use to make informed future reading decisions. The problem is, I have this (mostly unsuccessful) habit of wanting to try a second book by an author if the first one didn't hit me the way I had hoped. Besides, I was working off of some new evidence: in 2021, I read and loved The Dutch House, which was the quintessential suburban drama about a family of unlikeable, unhappy people. So I thought it would be worth it to give Celeste Ng's books about unlikeable, unhappy people another shot, now that I'm more prepared.

The good news is that I was successful, in the sense that I did enjoy this book considerably more than Little Fires Everywhere. I actually quite like Ng's writing style, which I think is why I wanted to try another one of her books - there were several turns of phrase in this one that really stuck with me and small details that rang very true. I especially thought the section that focused on Lydia was really touching and relatable.

However, despite what I said above about unhappy, unlikeable people, I found most of the characters in this book to be so unlikeable in their cruelty to each other that I found it hard to enjoy fully. And I know, The Dutch House is like that, too, but at least in the Dutch House, the cruelest and most unlikeable character is the "villain" of the story. Here, I understand that we are being given nuance, so the father and mother and brother's cruelties are explained but not justified in the context of their personal sufferings. But I guess they were just not redeemed for me, and I'm sure that others would be fine reading this book and feeling like those characters don't redeem themselves, but it just didn't work for me. Perhaps because although there is nuance in the sense that the characters have good and bad sides, struggles they suffer and struggles they inflict, the situations themselves (affairs, vicious insults towards children, disappearances, suicide, etc) are so dramatic that the effect isn't so much nuance as it is a dizzying pendulum swing.

So the end result is, I think, I won't write off the genre, but I may be done with Celeste Ng. ...more

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Jul 15, 2014 Angie H rated it liked it

This is a really hard book for me to rate. There were some parts that I really liked, others that I really disliked. This book was quite heartbeaking and basically was about a family that self-destructed itself after a horrible tragedy. It was frustrating to read, and sad to "watch". Communication is so important, and this family did NOT have it. (hence the title of the book)
Overall the book taught some important lessons, it's just the ride to get there was a little bumpy for me.
I still liked t ...more

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Jan 20, 2015 Jody rated it liked it

Shelves: popsugar-fall-2015

Certainly readable & fairly compelling, but it left me feeling a little "eh". Most of the characters weren't overly sympathetic or likeable (apart from Hannah, and, I suppose, Lydia). But it was just what I needed to read at the moment, while I'm in the middle of battling two giants of Russian literature - something easy to digest, and quick to read. Definitely feels like a "book club" kind of book. ...more

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Jun 05, 2015 Karen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

This was a relentlessly sad novel about a relentlessly dysfunctional family trying to find their way after a horrific tragedy turns their lives upside down. From the very first line relentlessly sad is a given but the relentlessly dysfunctional part spins out over the course of the book as we get to know each character and their individual stories. The Lee family seems fairly normal as the story starts but, my oh my, how did one family manage to go so wrong. I listened to the audio CD version of ...more

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Oct 03, 2018 Olivermagnus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2024, fiction, x8, zjuly-2024, debut

Everything I Never Told You is the story of a family in crisis. When Lydia, the oldest daughter, goes missing and is found dead in the middle of the lake, everyone wants to figure out how it could have happened.

Set in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1970s, this novel is the story of the Lee family: parents James and Marilyn, and kids Nath, Lydia, and Hannah. James is a first generation Chinese-American professor of American studies, while Marilyn is a blonde and has blue eyes. James has always wanted ...more

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Oct 25, 2014 Joi rated it it was ok

Shelves: adult-fiction, audiobooks, wat2

This book was not what I expected and I think that threw me off. I did not like any of the characters, I don't know what the plot was....I just read to the end just to know what happened....and it wasn't even worth it. ...more

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