The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere.
“A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense." -O, the Oprah Magazine
"Explosive...Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family." -Entertainment Weekly
“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. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
Maybe it's just me but I am sick to death of books that end without actually telling you anything. Or leaving it so out there you have to be as clever as Sheldon Cooper to get it (and I'm not even sure Sheldon would get it).
I really, really loved the writing for Everything I Never Told You, it was really, really good. So exquisite, the kind of writing that flows so poetically, and I liked the story of how the death of Lydia made the whole Lee family implode, but what absolutely bugged the life out of me is the simple fact that I still don't feel like I know what happened to Lydia.
I think I am done reading these so called "literary" books. I like that the books I do read have a proper, finite ending. Because I like proper and finite endings, and not the ending I had here. I felt like I'd read 300 pages and not learned a single thing! :(
