From the Bookshelf of 2017 Reading Challenge…

Everything I Never Told You

Celeste Ng

Discussion: 15/Book by a female author

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15/Book by a female author

In Your Dreams by Kristan Higgins
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last updated Nov 26, 2015 05:02PM

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
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What Members Thought

May 17, 2020 Masha rated it it was amazing

Captivating and very pretty. A lot on race, family dynamics, death, bad luck, and more. Sad but not tear squeezing scary stuff. Just beautiful and very real.

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Oct 10, 2017 Robin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

i felt sad reading pretty much this entire book. none of the characters were happy. the focus is on a Chinese-American family being different and trying to fit in to the small town in Ohio they lived in. the Chinese father grew up constantly feeling like an outcast/ outsider because this takes place before most people are treated equally and he was different because he was one of the only Chinese people in the community. the blond-haired, blue-eyed American mother had big aspirations and wanted i felt sad reading pretty much this entire book. none of the characters were happy. the focus is on a Chinese-American family being different and trying to fit in to the small town in Ohio they lived in. the Chinese father grew up constantly feeling like an outcast/ outsider because this takes place before most people are treated equally and he was different because he was one of the only Chinese people in the community. the blond-haired, blue-eyed American mother had big aspirations and wanted to become a doctor but because she got pregnant she became the housewife/ stay-at-home mom her mother raised her to become though she never spoke to again after she married since marrying that man just wasn't right in her eyes. the oldest kid was a studious good son, got into Harvard, but he reminded his father of himself too much and it seemed like nothing he did was ever good enough for his parents. they put all their focus on their middle daughter, who was obviously the favorite. the poor youngest daughter was an accident born years later and constantly forgotten.

the story focused mostly on the middle daughter. her father doted on her. her mother pushed her to become the successful doctor she wasn't able be once her domestic life got in the way. poor girl was pushed so hard that it seemed like she couldn't probably deal with the pressure anymore. if it wasn't for wanting to please her mother, i don't think she would have done a lot of the things she does throughout the book. there are a lot of mixed opinions on whether her death was an accident or whether she actually committed suicide. it is possible she didn't expect to die because it seemed like she went out to the lake to conquer her fears and was always told she could do anything she put her mind to so maybe she didn't honestly think she would drown. but knowing she couldn't swim and going to the lake in the middle of the night without anyone else to watch to make sure she made it back safely, to me, those signs point towards it being on purpose. the rest of the book basically focuses on how the family copes and tries to move on after her death. they are torn apart for quite a while but eventually they put the pieces back together and try to go on. it is sad that it took a tragedy like this to bring them back to each other.

i am glad that most people are more accepting nowadays as opposed to how things were when during when this book took place. growing up my brother and i always had multicultural friends - Chinese, Indian, white, African American, Israeli, Latino, Jewish, Christian, etc. we were raised to be kind and accepting to everyone so it saddens me that there is so much hatred/ bigotry towards other races and cultures just because they are different.
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Oct 07, 2022 Page rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, suspense, bipoc

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

Newton's Third Law of motion is about force and it also applies to family dynamics, especially for the Lee family whose children are the product of an interracial marriage. They stand out in town and in school and exist in between the opposite forces or tensions of their parents.

The complexity of family dynamics and the effects of intergenerational trauma that unravel and are laid bare in times of grief are the heart of this almost too ...more

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Feb 14, 2017 Sohini rated it really liked it

I think more than a suspense (at the very onset it talks about a dead girl) this also deals with human psychology. Which makes the book quite interesting. I loved how I could imagine a lot of people having enough twisted but well-tjought out motives to kill the girl. No spoilers.

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