Everything I Never Told You

The book came in a perfect condition + the book is amazing 👌🏼💫

Great book. My book club gave it the highest score for a book so far and we have been meeting for 6 years!

I must admit at the start I found this book a bit slow going but I'm glad I persevered as the story really picked up and grabbed my attention about a third of the way through - I finished the rest of the book in two sittings. It's very well written and I was really taken with all the themes in the book particularly in regard to integration and fulfilment. A great read. On the strength of this I will certainly be buying the author's second book.

We know right from the beginning of this story that sixteen-year-old Lydia Lee has died and, by the end of the story, we know how her death came about - but does the story in between explain fully Lydia’s journey from life to death? The mixed race daughter of a blonde American mother and a Chinese American father, Lydia, with her long, black hair and her unusual blue eyes, has never really fitted in with the other girls at her school (all of whom appear to be white Americans). Still suffering from her mother’s temporary abandonment of her when she was a small child, Lydia tries her best to be the daughter her mother wants her to be, especially when it comes to achieving good grades at school. But when Lydia’s grades begin to fall and she starts spending time with Jack Wolff, the local ‘heartthrob’, her life quietly begins to unravel. Her parents, meanwhile, with problems of their own, fail to see that Lydia is in difficulty, and when her body is discovered in the local lake, they each deal with the aftermath in ways that cause them even more problems and heartache. And then there are the Lees' two other children, Nath and Hannah, who have to try to navigate their way around the death of their sister and also the backlash of their parents’ grief.Set in the 1970s in small-town Ohio, this story of a Chinese-American family is one that looks at the difficulties encountered in a mixed-race marriage and of the problems experienced by the children of that marriage. It also looks at the the dangers of parents living their lives through their children and of wanting their offspring to achieve what they have been unable to achieve for themselves. As a debut novel, this is a good one, but I do feel that the proliferation of plaudits on the book’s cover (“This ghostly novel calls to mind ‘The Lovely Bones”; “A page-tuning literary thriller” etc.) leads the reader to expect something different to that which is actually delivered and I feel this is more of a story that looks at dysfunctional families, racial barriers, parental expectations and the need to belong, rather than a “page-turning literary thriller.” There is more I should like to discuss about this novel, for instance how could the parents, as two intelligent people, be so blind as to what was happening within their family? Or did they just prefer not to see what they didn’t feel capable of facing? However to discuss this further would risk revealing spoilers, so I shall just add that despite this book being not quite what I expected, parts of the story are beautifully written, if poignant to read, and reading this has made me interested in looking at the author’s second novel ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ which has been recommended to me.

I am at a loss to see what all the fuss is aboutThis is shallow, boring, poorly written and extremely predictableIt makes me a bit cross to think this standard of writing wins lots of prizesDidn't help that I read it straight after "We need to talk about Kevin" which is a masterpiece

I enjoyed reading this book and found the family and time period intriguing. I would say almost nobody in the family is likeable or for that matter detestable, apart from the youngest child who only wants people around her to be happy. She turns out to be one of the smartest characters which is subtly shown in the book, like the voice of good that tries to call out against the din. There is a death very early on in the book, but this story to me is not some murder mystery or even thriller. Just a series of character portraits that tries to unpick the backgrounds of the central cast, to show why they behave how they do, including irrationally and disreputably. I was a little hooked to read through this book, wondering what the author might reveal next.The ending could be more satisfying and well-rounded, but it was decent and realistic to the framework of the story. Well-written and setting up a very good atmosphere. I didn't like though that seemingly everyone had a purpose, everything had a reason or meaning behind it. This read like a formulaic writing-style, that a teacher might suggest to follow for creative writing.