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Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Book Review - Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

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“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” 
Viola Davis 


───

My review of
Everything I Never Told You  




This book was emotionally draining and that is a good thing (as far as I’m concerned). A book that makes me sob always gets 5 stars from me. What a powerful story of family, love and heartbreak. It is one thing to pretend to be someone you are not. But pretending to be someone you don’t want to be must be utterly exhausting.  
I’m one of those people who doesn’t bother to read the blurb on a book if I know the author. This book was one of those so I went in not knowing what this book was a bout (I like surprises). This one starts you off in a typical house with a typical school morning. Kids having breakfast, lunches being fixed, parents rushing out the door and so on. The scene of homely moments suddenly changes when Lydia, the middle child of James and Marylyn Lee, doesn’t come down for breakfast. Soon they find out that their beautiful daughter was found dead in the lake behind their home and the family begins to fall apart.
In a beautifully written story, Celeste Ng takes us on an amazing and intertwined journey of family and loss. Read from different perspectives and times, this book touches on many important family and social issues which  give the reader a perspective of what it’s like to be and feel different when everyone around you expects you to be the same as everybody else. This is a burden James, Lydia's father has carried with him his entire life which he then passes on to his children.
This novel gives a powerful lesson of what happens when parents place too much pressure on their children’s shoulder and at times have unrealistic expectations. 
This one will stay with me for a long, long time.

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