Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng
I loved this book sooo much.
The novel begins immediately with the death of Lydia Lee, the middle child of the blended Asian-American Lee family. The book is essentially a slow burn reveal of how and why Lydia died and while the answer to that mystery is something of a dissappointment the book, which traces the courtship of James, the Californian born son of Chinese immigrants, and Marilyn, the white prodigeous daughter of a Home-ec teacher, who dreamed of becoming a doctor, is what really makes the story work.
This is a book that understands family relationships, and the way that people's lives don't really begin with the day that they were born but extend backwards through time to the griefs and hopes and lives of their parents and their parents parents etc. It's beautifully constructed, and the way that each event has unintended consequences that echo down through the generations is both completely logical and emotionally resonant.
The novel begins immediately with the death of Lydia Lee, the middle child of the blended Asian-American Lee family. The book is essentially a slow burn reveal of how and why Lydia died and while the answer to that mystery is something of a dissappointment the book, which traces the courtship of James, the Californian born son of Chinese immigrants, and Marilyn, the white prodigeous daughter of a Home-ec teacher, who dreamed of becoming a doctor, is what really makes the story work.
This is a book that understands family relationships, and the way that people's lives don't really begin with the day that they were born but extend backwards through time to the griefs and hopes and lives of their parents and their parents parents etc. It's beautifully constructed, and the way that each event has unintended consequences that echo down through the generations is both completely logical and emotionally resonant.