Ng, Celeste. Everything I Never Told You. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014. Print. ISBN: 159420571X
Summary: This is a heart wrenching story of a sixteen-year-old
girl named Lydia and how she came to be found at the bottom of her neighborhood
lake. Her family is left wondering what happened, what went wrong… A tragic
story where those left behind struggle to come to terms with the part they may
have played in Lydia’s death. A modern day Ordinary People
yet still set in 1977.
Analysis: Everything I Never Told You is a heart wrenching story as you follow each of the
family’s thoughts as they work through the process of losing a family member. Set
in 1977 Ohio in a small town called Middlewood, the story opens up to a Chinese
American family noticing that their sixteen year old daughter is missing. This
brings some mystery to the story as the reader is left trying to figure out
what actually happened to Lydia Lee, what went wrong.
Ng takes a different
approach here. Typically the reader will learn about the victim, hearing from her
and her close friends, yet Ng focuses more on the past of each of the parents.
This is great as it shows young adults a different perspective giving them an understanding
that parents had or have lives too… Dreams that they themselves want or wanted
to fulfill, and how that makes them want to see their children reach the same
dreams as well as the toll that takes on the child. The reader also hears from the
siblings and sees how they are dealing with the loss through their eyes as well.
Hearing from each family member one sees how they all try to figure out when it
was their world began to tilt in the wrong direction.
Ng weaves a story
together beautifully. The reader feels the angst and frustration of growing up
Chinese American and the prejudices that comes with that back in 1977. While
this very well could be an adult novel, older young adults will get lost in the
mystery of what happened to Lydia.
Activity: The students could do a comparison study
review of the modern day novel Everything
I Never Told You to the classic novel Ordinary People. After reading both, students will complete plot maps for both
stories, then choose one character from both novels and comparing the character
development of the two.
Related Resources: Two novels that are related to
the theme of coming to terms with loss in Everything
I Never Told You are:
Asher, Jay. 13 Reasons Why. London:
Penguin, 2017. Print.
Thirteen Reasons Why is a modern day story about a
girl that commits suicide and the thirteen reasons why she ends her life. It is
a story of how the people who knew her struggle to understand and cope with
this tragedy.
Guest, Judith. Ordinary People. NY, NY: Penguin, 2015. Print
Ordinary People living ordinary lives enduring life's ordinary issues and
tragedies but struggling along the while learning to heal. A father who cares
too much, a mother that doesn't care enough, and son just trying to figure out
how to exist between the two.
Scholarly Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2014; Booklist 05/15/2014; Library Journal 05/01/2014; Publishers Weekly 04/14/2014
Ng, Celeste. Everything
I Never Told You. Penguin Group USA, 2014. EBSCOhost,
ezp.twu.edu/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=kdh&AN=BK0013949093&site=ehost-live.
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