A review by irismaybooks
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I mean wow, where do I even begin?

Everything I Never Told You focuses on a Chinese-American family living in a small town in Ohio circa 1977, and follows the aftermath of said family after one of the daughters drowns in the nearby lake. 

The characters are all very complex, and at least in my experience, my opinion of them all fluctuated between liking them and disliking them — something that I found made them all very real to me. As we really dig into the backgrounds of these characters, the children's motives are so clearly a result of how their parents raised them. Even further, we understand how their parent's own upbringing influenced how they parented their children. 

While so many of these problems could have been addressed in some deep conversations, with how rooted these issues are ingrained into these characters, there would be no clear place to start. It is almost haunting how the generational trauma that started long before the parents even met continued down into their children, and how desperately these children try to escape it. My words can hardly do justice to how deeply these characters are explored, and it is almost overwhelming how much you can sympathise with each of them even if you disagree heavily with some actions they take. It is excruciating watching this family be torn apart by the sudden death of their daughter, and the way the grief of each character was portrayed felt incredibly realistic, and right on par with what you'd expect of the characters. 

The writing itself was beautiful, Ng is such a fantastic author and has captured so perfectly the fragility of love and life. 

My only complaints, however, were that the chapters were too long for my liking, and that certain sections dragged on. Granted, this heightened the emotion for me, because once you got to the peak you well and truly hit it after the buildup. These are just little gripes I had, for an otherwise wonderful read!
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