Everything I Never Told You

This intriguing tale of unhappy families will have you gripped from the opening line ... No wonder it beat Hilary Mantel and Stephen King to win Amazon's book of the year Stylist The mysterious circumstances of 16-year-old Lydia Lee's tragic death have her loved ones wondering how, exactly, she spent her free time. This ghostly debut novel calls to mind The Lovely Bones Marie Claire If we know this story, we haven't seen it yet in American fiction, not until now... Ng has set two tasks in this novel's doubled heart-to be exciting, and to tell a story bigger than whatever is behind the crime. She does both by turning the nest of familial resentments into at least four smaller, prickly mysteries full of secrets the family members won't share... What emerges is a deep, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling with its place in history, and a young woman hoping to be the fulfillment of that struggle. This is, in the end, a novel about the burden of being the first of your kind-a burden you do not always survive New York Times Book Review Ng constructs a mesmerizing narrative that shrinks enormous issues of race, prejudice, identity, and gender into the miniaturist dynamics of a single family. A breathtaking triumph, reminiscent of prophetic debuts by Ha Jin, Chang-rae Lee, and -Chimamanda Adichie, whose first titles matured into spectacular, continuing literary legacies Library Journal, starred review Excellent ... an accomplished debut ... heart-wrenching ... 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 Los Angeles Times 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... 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 Huffington Post Cleverly crafted, emotionally perceptive ... Ng sensitively dramatizes issues of gender and race that lie at the heart of the story ... Ng's themes of assimilation are themselves deftly interlaced into a taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense O, The Oprah Magazine [A] moving tale ... of daughters for whom cultural disconnect is but the first challenge Vogue Ng expertly explores and exposes the Lee family's secrets... These long-hidden, quietly explosive truths, weighted by issues of race and gender, slowly bubble to the surface of Ng's sensitive, absorbing novel and reverberate long after its final page. Ng's emotionally complex debut novel sucks you in like a strong current and holds you fast until its final secrets surface Kirkus Wonderfully moving ... Emotionally precise ... A beautifully crafted study of dysfunction and grief...[This book] will resonate with anyone who has ever had a family drama Boston Globe Ng moves gracefully back and forth in time, into the aftermath of the tragedy as well as the distant past, and into the consciousness of each member of the family, creating a series of mysteries and revelations that lead back to the original question: what happened to Lydia? ... Ng is masterful in her use of the omniscient narrator, achieving both a historical distance and visceral intimacy with each character's struggles and failures ... On the surface, Ng's storylines are nothing new. There is a mysterious death, a family pulled apart by misunderstanding and grief, a struggle to fit into the norms of society, yet in the weaving of these threads she creates a work of ambitious complexity. In the end, this novel movingly portrays the burden of difference at a time when difference had no cultural value ... Compelling Los Angeles Review of Books I couldn't stop reading Everything I Never Told You ... the writing is so smooth and keenly observed. The portrait of each member of the Lee family, the exploration of their mixed-race issues and the search for the killer of their sister and daughter, Lydia, pulled at my heartstrings to the very end -- Uwem Akpan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Say You're One of Them The mysterious circumstances of 16-year-old Lydia Lee's tragic death have her loved ones wondering how, exactly, she spent her free time. This ghostly debut novel calls to mind The Lovely Bones Marie Claire If we know this story, we haven't seen it yet in American fiction, not until now... Ng has set two tasks in this novel's doubled heart-to be exciting, and to tell a story bigger than whatever is behind the crime. She does both by turning the nest of familial resentments into at least four smaller, prickly mysteries full of secrets the family members won't share... What emerges is a deep, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling with its place in history, and a young woman hoping to be the fulfillment of that struggle. This is, in the end, a novel about the burden of being the first of your kind-a burden you do not always survive New York Times Book Review Ng constructs a mesmerizing narrative that shrinks enormous issues of race, prejudice, identity, and gender into the miniaturist dynamics of a single family. A breathtaking triumph, reminiscent of prophetic debuts by Ha Jin, Chang-rae Lee, and -Chimamanda Adichie, whose first titles matured into spectacular, continuing literary legacies Library Journal, starred review Excellent ... an accomplished debut ... heart-wrenching ... 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 Los Angeles Times 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... 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 Huffington Post Cleverly crafted, emotionally perceptive ... Ng sensitively dramatizes issues of gender and race that lie at the heart of the story ... Ng's themes of assimilation are themselves deftly interlaced into a taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense O, The Oprah Magazine [A] moving tale ... of daughters for whom cultural disconnect is but the first challenge Vogue Ng expertly explores and exposes the Lee family's secrets... These long-hidden, quietly explosive truths, weighted by issues of race and gender, slowly bubble to the surface of Ng's sensitive, absorbing novel and reverberate long after its final page. Ng's emotionally complex debut novel sucks you in like a strong current and holds you fast until its final secrets surface Kirkus Wonderfully moving ... Emotionally precise ... A beautifully crafted study of dysfunction and grief...[This book] will resonate with anyone who has ever had a family drama Boston Globe Ng moves gracefully back and forth in time, into the aftermath of the tragedy as well as the distant past, and into the consciousness of each member of the family, creating a series of mysteries and revelations that lead back to the original question: what happened to Lydia? ... Ng is masterful in her use of the omniscient narrator, achieving both a historical distance and visceral intimacy with each character's struggles and failures ... On the surface, Ng's storylines are nothing new. There is a mysterious death, a family pulled apart by misunderstanding and grief, a struggle to fit into the norms of society, yet in the weaving of these threads she creates a work of ambitious complexity. In the end, this novel movingly portrays the burden of difference at a time when difference had no cultural value ... Compelling Los Angeles Review of Books I couldn't stop reading Everything I Never Told You ... the writing is so smooth and keenly observed. The portrait of each member of the Lee family, the exploration of their mixed-race issues and the search for the killer of their sister and daughter, Lydia, pulled at my heartstrings to the very end -- Uwem Akpan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Say You're One of Them [A] moving tale... of daughters for whom cultural disconnect is but the first challenge Vogue The mysterious circumstances of 16-year-old Lydia Lee's tragic death have her loved ones wondering how, exactly, she spent her free time. This ghostly debut novel calls to mind The Lovely Bones Marie Claire