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A review by lalawoman416
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
5.0
Such a heavy book. It's for anyone who has ever felt the weight of expectations or the weight of their otherness or the weight of their broken dreams.
James is a Chinese American growing up in the 1950s, ashamed of being different, wanting nothing more than to just fit in. Marilyn is a white girl growing up in the 1950s who wants nothing more than to go to Radcliffe/Harvard and be a doctor. At Harvard, they meet, they fall in love, and just like that Marilyn becomes a suburban housewife and James is shunned from top tier academia because of his race.
Fast forward to the 70s whwre they're raising their biracial children in a small town in Ohio. Marilyn wants nothing more than for her daughter, Lydia, to be the doctor she never could be. James wants his son, Nath, to be the popular kid that he never could be. And they both neglect their youngest child.
Little do Marilyn and James know that their dreams, hopes, and aspirations are not in line with their children's. At the begining of the book you find out that Lydia has drowned in the town lake. James and Lydia have to come to terms with what this means, how it happened, how they missed all the signs.
It's such a heavy, heavy book but with themes that are so important for any parent. So important to be self reflective and insightful of those weights we carry and make other people carry.
James is a Chinese American growing up in the 1950s, ashamed of being different, wanting nothing more than to just fit in. Marilyn is a white girl growing up in the 1950s who wants nothing more than to go to Radcliffe/Harvard and be a doctor. At Harvard, they meet, they fall in love, and just like that Marilyn becomes a suburban housewife and James is shunned from top tier academia because of his race.
Fast forward to the 70s whwre they're raising their biracial children in a small town in Ohio. Marilyn wants nothing more than for her daughter, Lydia, to be the doctor she never could be. James wants his son, Nath, to be the popular kid that he never could be. And they both neglect their youngest child.
Little do Marilyn and James know that their dreams, hopes, and aspirations are not in line with their children's. At the begining of the book you find out that Lydia has drowned in the town lake. James and Lydia have to come to terms with what this means, how it happened, how they missed all the signs.
It's such a heavy, heavy book but with themes that are so important for any parent. So important to be self reflective and insightful of those weights we carry and make other people carry.