Everything I Never Told You, Hardcover/Celeste Ng

Lydia is dead. But they don t know this yet . . . So begins thestory of this exquisite debut novel, about a ChineseAmerican family living in 1970s small-town Ohio.Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee;their middle daughter, a girl who inherited hermother s bright blue eyes and her father s jet-blackhair. Her parents are determined that Lydia willfulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue inMarilyn s case that her daughter become a doctorrather than a homemaker, in James s case that Lydiabe popular at school, a girl with a busy social life andthe center of every party. When Lydia s body is found in the local lake, thedelicate balancing act that has been keeping the Leefamily together tumbles into chaos, forcing them toconfront the long-kept secrets that have been slowlypulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, setsout on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage.Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined tofind a responsible party, no matter what the cost.Lydia s older brother, Nathan, is certain that theneighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved.But it s the youngest of the family Hannah whoobserves far more than anyone realizes and whomay be the only one who knows the truth aboutwhat happened. A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive familyportrait, exploring the divisions between culturesand the rifts within a family, and uncovering theways in which mothers and daughters, fathers andsons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another."