Everything I Never Told You

by Celeste Ng

[nannah]

Oh, I don’t read many mysteries, but I’m glad I picked this one up. It’s a very beautiful, thoughtful, and sad story about a tragic event causing a family to unravel and then come back together.

Content warnings:
- suicide

Representation:
- the main family (who are all POV characters) is biracial; the father is Chinese-American, and the children are Chinese and white.
- a secondary character is a gay/bisexual man, but this gets very little page time

The Lees are a mixed Chinese-American family living in Ohio in the 1970s. Their daughter, Lydia, the favorite and burdened with her parents’ dreams, has just shown up dead in the lake in front of their house. Without Lydia, the family seems to fall apart. And as the family piece together more behind her death, it’s clear none of them truly knew Lydia at all.

I have never read a book that captures someone falling out of love as realistically and perfectly as this one. This occurs both between the parents and between the parents and children. It’s unnerving how well Celeste Ng understands the minds of each of the characters and knows how they’ll react to every event.

I really don’t have much to say other than it’s a masterfully done story (though I should’ve counted how many times someone mashed their mushy cereal to nothing with their spoon. It had to be at least six or seven times). I'll be looking at what else Celeste Ng has written right after I post this review ...