Book Review: Everthing I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
A teenage girl drowns in a Lake, and her death threatens to destroy her family. The premise seems simple enough, but the complex layers of emotions, expectations and experiences of the family members are not.
As the family is introduced, the reader experiences the sacrifices of a first generation Chinese family struggling to send their only son to Harvard, a son's lifelong humiliation for never being able to "fit in" with his peers despite his education. We are introduced to a Chinese father's interracial marriage to a once ambitious young scholar who yearned to become a doctor, but could not break out of the "Betty Crocker" role assigned to women of her generation once she had children. We also experience this family's parental hopes and dreams that are projected onto their off springs, especially onto their teenage daughter, Lydia, who they see as the girl who would finally break stereotypes and barriers.
Lydia was found drowned in a lake near her house. Was it an accident? Was it foul play? Or was it suicide? The family's interracial marriage and each member's inability to be accepted by society may have been a root cause of Lydia's death. The mother's ambition for Lydia to have a medical career that she herself was never able to achieve, and the father's hope that Lydia would find social acceptance in a way that he never could, may have contributed to Lydia's depression and subterfuge. After all, her desire to please her parents despite her increasing inability to perform academically and socially as they wished can only end in disaster. Or, is Lydia's despair a result of being jilted by a popular boy in school who happens to be gay and who loves her brother?
Everything I Never Told You delves into deep and complex cultural experiences, human emotions and motivations. It deftly reveals the dimensions of family expectations and the degree to which things left unsaid can lead to devastating consequences.
As a first generation Asian American immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager who found it hard to fit in with the American high school culture, but carrying on my shoulders the hopes and dreams of parents who sacrificed for their children so they can have a "better life", this book hits home. As a parent who want the best for her two teenage girls, it also makes me wonder whether parents' projection of their dreams and goals onto their children is ever justified, and why insecurities, humiliations, disappointments are just so hard to tell the people we love.
As the family is introduced, the reader experiences the sacrifices of a first generation Chinese family struggling to send their only son to Harvard, a son's lifelong humiliation for never being able to "fit in" with his peers despite his education. We are introduced to a Chinese father's interracial marriage to a once ambitious young scholar who yearned to become a doctor, but could not break out of the "Betty Crocker" role assigned to women of her generation once she had children. We also experience this family's parental hopes and dreams that are projected onto their off springs, especially onto their teenage daughter, Lydia, who they see as the girl who would finally break stereotypes and barriers.
Lydia was found drowned in a lake near her house. Was it an accident? Was it foul play? Or was it suicide? The family's interracial marriage and each member's inability to be accepted by society may have been a root cause of Lydia's death. The mother's ambition for Lydia to have a medical career that she herself was never able to achieve, and the father's hope that Lydia would find social acceptance in a way that he never could, may have contributed to Lydia's depression and subterfuge. After all, her desire to please her parents despite her increasing inability to perform academically and socially as they wished can only end in disaster. Or, is Lydia's despair a result of being jilted by a popular boy in school who happens to be gay and who loves her brother?
Everything I Never Told You delves into deep and complex cultural experiences, human emotions and motivations. It deftly reveals the dimensions of family expectations and the degree to which things left unsaid can lead to devastating consequences.
As a first generation Asian American immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager who found it hard to fit in with the American high school culture, but carrying on my shoulders the hopes and dreams of parents who sacrificed for their children so they can have a "better life", this book hits home. As a parent who want the best for her two teenage girls, it also makes me wonder whether parents' projection of their dreams and goals onto their children is ever justified, and why insecurities, humiliations, disappointments are just so hard to tell the people we love.
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