Celeste Ng's Blog, page 5
July 11, 2014
Love from the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Lots of love from my hometown newspaper, the Plain Dealer! First, in a review of Everything I Never Told You, the Plain Dealer writes:
"It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel for Celeste Ng. She tackles the themes of family dynamics, gender and racial stereotyping, and the weight of expectations, all with insight made more powerful through understatement. She has an exact, sophisticated touch with her prose."
Then, there's an interview with me in which we talk about growing up in Cleveland, my experience as an Asian American, and the writing process.
LA Times, Dallas Morning News, Ann Arbor Observer, and more
Lots of good news to share from the past week!
The Los Angeles Times calls Everything I Never Told You "an accomplished debut":
Ng's portrait of the relationship between Lydia and Marilyn, especially, feels true and fully realized. It's also heart-wrenching. [...] In the end, Ng deftly pulls together the strands of this complex, multigenerational novel. "Everything I Never Told You" is an engaging work that casts a powerful light on the secrets that have kept an American family together — and that finally end up tearing it apart.
The Dallas Morning News writes:
Everything I Never Told You is at heart the beautifully crafted story of a family in pain, and the many reasons, personal and societal, that the Lees have lived most of their lives as strangers to one another. Making us care so deeply about her characters is Ng’s triumph.
The Ann Arbor Observer calls it a "masterful" and notes,
"Much of the intellectual weight of this deeply moving novel comes from Ng's clear-eyed exploration of the shaping force of her characters' ethnicity, but it's also an unforgiving revelation of the prejudice that surrounds them. [...] Celeste Ng has made us care enough that we too hope for the possibility of healing."
Time Out writes:
"Ng’s tender debut [...] touches on the myriad paths grief may take, the secrets everyone keeps and how much a tragedy can affect relationships in a family."
Grantland raves:
"Everything I Never Told You moves with the velocity ... of a great literary mystery. [...] But the emotional core of Celeste Ng’s debut is what sets it apart. [...] With a deft hand, she loads and unpacks the implications of being the only Chinese American family in a small town in Ohio."
July 1, 2014
NPR's Weekend All Things Considered
I talked to NPR host Arun Rath for Weekend All Things Considered. If you missed it on air, you can hear the whole clip on NPR's CodeSwitch site.
The first reviews are in...
As Ng deftly paints a powerful yet tender portrait of a family torn apart, she simultaneously delves into the way culture and race change relationships as well. But the best part is that Ng subtly weaves all of this into the story, while avoiding clichés or a too-heavy tone. For an intriguing but very accessible glimpse into human psychology, this one’s got our seal of approval.
Ng (pronounced “ing”) is a gifted storyteller but an even more gifted character-builder. [...] Everything I Never Told You is a book that has a lot to say. It explores the challenges of an interracial family in 1970’s America. It’s also about the pressure and problems of being both the middle child and the favorite child. It’s about what it means to be a girl and a woman, and how it feels to be different. Ng doesn’t have any easy solutions or platitudes about grief and redemption. She gives us characters who are fully developed, whose grief is palpable and believable.
Ng’s deftness with detail draws the reader close into the family’s struggle to understand. ... [H]er pinpoint precision on the feelings and actions after loss make for a very strong and emotional debut that will linger in the mind.
June 24, 2014
Amazon "Best Books of the Year So Far"
Amazon has picked Everything I Never Told You as one of the best books of the year so far. I'm really floored to be on this list alongside Cristina Henriquez, Phil Klay, Lily King, Lorrie Moore, Mona Simpson, and many other writers I admire!
You can see the full list online here.
A rave from the Huffington Post!
I'm stunned by (and grateful for) this generous review for Everything I Never Told You from the Huffington Post:
Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You is a powerhouse of a debut novel, a literary mystery crafted out of shimmering prose and precise, painful observation about racial barriers, the burden of familial expectations, and the basic human thirst for belonging. [...]
The clear-eyed observation and elegant prose throughout the novel bring depth and beauty to the more traditional narrative arc underneath. Ng’s novel grips readers from page one with the hope of unraveling the mystery behind Lydia’s death -- and boy does it deliver, on every front.
Read the full review online.
June 22, 2014
Boston Globe: "First Person" and "Story Behind the Book"
Curious about me? About my book? About what I'd look like as a line drawing? The Boston Globe has a double-dose of coverage in today's Sunday Globe: a profile of me in the Magazine's "First Person" series, as told to Rachel Deahl, and some of the backstory of the novel in "The Story Behind the Book" by Kate Tuttle.
Bostonians, just a reminder: I'll be launching Everything I Never Told You with a reading at Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge on Thursday, June 26, at 7pm. For more details, visit my Events page.
June 20, 2014
Starred Review: School Library Journal
School Library Journal gives Everything I Never Told You a starred review!
Lydia is dead. So starts this compelling tearjerker that is a mystery buried inside a painful family drama. [...] Hand this one to fans of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones (Little, Brown, 2002), and tell them to read it with a box of tissues close at hand.
June 9, 2014
Parade: 20 Favorite Books of 2014 so far
Parade lists Everything I Never Told You as one of its "20 Favorite Books of 2014 So Far," alongside Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams, Joshua Ferris's To Rise Again At a Decent Hour, and Phil Klay's Redeployment. Amazon editor Chris Schluep writes, "This could be my favorite novel of the year."
June 2, 2014
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Books to Carry on the Road
Going on a road trip? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggests Everything I Never Told You as a great book to take with you.
