Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng is a poignant family drama that explores themes of identity, belonging, and unspoken secrets. Set in the 1970s, the novel follows the Chinese-American Lee family, whose world is shattered when their middle daughter, Lydia, is found dead in a lake.
As the family struggles to understand what happened, the story unfolds through multiple perspectives, revealing long-buried tensions. Lydia, their bright and seemingly perfect daughter, carried the weight of her parents' expectations—her father, James, wanted her to fit in, while her mother, Marilyn, dreamed of her becoming a doctor. Meanwhile, her siblings, Nathan and Hannah, navigate their own struggles, often overlooked in the shadow of Lydia’s pressures.
Through beautifully crafted prose, Everything I Never Told You delves into issues of race, gender, family expectations, and the complexities of communication. It’s a heartbreaking yet deeply human story about love, loss, and the things left unsaid.