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

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

4.75

How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because of Lydia's mother and father, because of her mother's and father's mothers and fathers.
TLDR; a broken world makes broken parents who produce broken children, but it is never too late to pick up the pieces and bond them back together

This book is not just that overused trope of "girl commits suicide, how does her family come to terms with it?" it is so much more. Celeste Ng's work of intertwining well-developed and ongoing themes of racism, the 70s Asian American experience, the nuances of generational trauma, dynamics of a broken family in her DEBUT novel is truly commendable. Her effortless use of such relatable and vivid metaphors to explain the thoughts and nuances of her dimensional characters, whilst also building up such tangible tension is the only reason I devoured this book in 2 days. Her characters are flawed and real, the perfect balance between ugly yet human. How she explores coping mechanisms and provides a new perspective to the trope of miscommunication--Everything I Never Told You, it is not just Lydia's story, honestly she is barely mentioned at all, it is instead each family member's sentiment towards each other. They all failed to tell each other things, therefore never healed, until they were forced to sit and face it after Lydia's death.

I need a Jack and Nath prologue asap
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