EINTY General (No Spoilers) (Sep 2017)

[Caroline]

Here is a general thread for discussing this month's moderator pick Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. Please feel free to share any comments, initial impressions, articles, or questions here - though please hold any spoilers for the main threads.

I just arrived in London from San Francisco so am a bit dead at the moment, but I will put together some articles, questions, and other threads tomorrow!

[Hugh]

I have a copy and will try to fit it in soon...

[Robert]

I read the book back in 2015. I found it to be a well structured novel and themes were developed well but the constant pessimism got to me. It's the sort of novel a booktuber would love.

[SueLucie]

I have started reading this today.

[Caroline]

I look forward to seeing what you think Sue and Hugh. Robert, I am not familiar with booktube - guessing some kind of popular book club-style channels?

I've read a few reviews of the book and they each identify a few themes from the book: (1) the literary thriller aspect of Lydia's death, (2) family relationships, and (3) the feeling of being an outsider. I agree with the reviewers in that the literary thriller aspect is the weakest while Ng handles the other themes incredibly well. I will be curious to see what others think. Here are links to a few reviews, as well as one interview she did with the Code Switch blog on NPR a few years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/bo...

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketco...

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitc...

[Robert]

Caroline wrote: "I look forward to seeing what you think Sue and Hugh. Robert, I am not familiar with booktube - guessing some kind of popular book club-style channels?

I've read a few reviews of the book and they..."

You're sort of right - they are the YouTube book reviewing community. The ones that cover literary fiction generally tend to focus on books that are quick and easy to read so the Celeste Ng book is ideal for them. Any novel with the slightest hint of experimentation be it plot or language will get a passionate rant on how the book is awful and how people should avoid it. There are exceptions obviously but not many.

[Marc]

"Booktuber" sounds like a pejorative! Admittedly, I've only seen a couple of these Youtube book reviews, but I generally prefer to read reviews. Still, if it gets people reading or helps writers, I'm all for it.

[Robert]

Well they call themselves booktubers so i guess it is ok. Fair enough re reading.

[Hugh]

On the evidence of the first half, it is much better than Robert's comments would have led me to expect, but it is quite a depressing read...

[PS]

New-ish member here. I read this book during a long plane journey last week. I thought it was beautifully written and I loved the way Ng explores racism and exclusion through the characters' back stories. I'll save the rest of my thoughts for the main thread.

[SueLucie]

I found myself so engaged with this book that I read the whole thing over the weekend. I'll confine my comments to the final thread to avoid spoiling.

[Beverly]

Caroline wrote: "I look forward to seeing what you think Sue and Hugh. Robert, I am not familiar with booktube - guessing some kind of popular book club-style channels?

I've read a few reviews of the book and they..."

I agree with you that the literary thriller is the weakest aspect of this book.
I read it back in 2014 so many the details are fuzzy.

I remember that the first line pulled me in but in the end I thought of it more as domestic fiction.

[Kirsten]

Just started reading this. I agree with Beverly that it reads more like domestic fiction.