Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I seen this book around in bookstores and many times i contemplated to buy it. I was lucky enough to stumble upon it on my recent visit to the library and borrowed it. i am glad i just borrow it instead of buying! i did not fully enjoy it. it felt like i have read the storyline before, nothing fantastic about it. i read through it with such dread partly because it is, quite a depressing story, perhaps as intended by the author.
it’s about a family of mixed marriage, about death of a daughter and how its loss affected the family. ultimately about a family so engrossed with personal expectations they fail to see the signs of a troubled teenage girl. in the end, i only have a soft spot for Hannah, the youngest sister and how the family – father, mother and an elder brother, completely dismiss this little girl’s need and emotion upon her sister’s death, each family still engrossed and selfish with their own feelings.
the book goes back and forth from the present and the past, or days leading to the death of the girl, Lydia. the characters are all abit cliched. a mother who actually ran away, to continue her studies, which i find preposterous because why can’t she just talk about it with her husband, who is a professor, someone who would appreciate learning and education. how stupid the idea is, and eventually, the mother running away for weeks would be the cause of Lydia’s distorted understanding of the need to please her mother and lead the child to grow up trying to be what her mother couldn’t be, completely losing her sense of self. a father who does not know anything about parenting and losing out to temptation to a teaching assistant, on the night of her daughter’s funeral nevertheless, who also, despite being asian, lost all sense of asian values.
i understood the pain Lydia went through. but towards the end, i was just thinking, why the heck did i even pick it up and read it. maybe because the story started with the knowledge that Lydia died so that is pretty much the ending we are moving to, so there is no mystery to it. i probably would appreciate it more, perhaps even be surprised by the ending if the story started with what it intended to have, a ‘simple’ picket fence family who just wants to live an honest life, but ended up with a tragedy.
living seri 