Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: A Review

“This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others.” -Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing

Homegoing is a novel that reads like a series of vignettes. It spans eight generations, beginning in Ghana in the late 1700s with the stories of Effia and Esi – two sisters who don’t even know the other exists. Effia is forced to marry a British officer stationed at the notorious Cape Coast Castle, where people were imprisoned before being sold on into the slave markets of the Americas. Esi is captured in a raid on her village and sold as a slave, eventually ending up on a plantation in America. The novel alternates between tracing the experiences of Effia and Esi’s descendents – one family in Ghana and the other in America. Each chapter sheds light on a moment in time in a single character’s life, although sometimes there is intersection between the stories of parents and children. Although it is a relatively short novel, it has the feeling of a sweeping epic because Gyasi covers so much ground in terms of both Ghanan and African American experiences from the height of the slave trade until the present day.

What struck me the most in reading Homegoing was how Gyasi was exploring choice and consequences through her characters. Although each character is only part of the novel for a brief time, their choices often impact their children and their children’s children. Gyasi examines the role of choice – or lack of choice – in shaping her character’s lives that moves beyond family relationships to much broader issues, like the decision of Fante leaders to traffic slaves for the British, and the impact of the slave trade on those sent to the Americas but also on those who remained in west Africa. In many ways, it is a novel about power and how people are forced to conform to the expectations of those in power or face the consequences of their choices. Another major theme in the novel is the search for identity within both families and larger cultures and the desire to belong. Effia is forced from her family, where she was always treated differently, and into a marriage with a man she didn’t choose; her son, Quey does not belong in London, his father’s home, but neither does he truly belong in his mother’s Ghanan village. Being “other” in the worlds Gyasi contructs is dangerous – but conforming often comes at too high a cost.

While Gyasi ends the novel with a sense of hope for reconcilation despite the painful history the families have endured, much of the writing is haunting in its descriptions of the inhumanity that marginalized people face. Whether it was because of race, gender, sexual orientation or class, the weight of being disempowered is felt throughout the novel. Gyasi doesn’t pull back from the historical realities her characters face and I think she is playing to some degree with our expectations as readers – each chapter opens and closes on a single character and we keep waiting for a happy ending that doesn’t come. As I read, I kept waiting for it to “work out” for one of the characters and then I realized: there weren’t going to be happy endings. And that was the point.

I have heard some people say that Homegoing is the best book they have read in recent years and while I wouldn’t say that’s true for me, it’s worth picking up. I like to “sit” with my characters for a while so the format of the novel was challenging because just as I felt I was getting to know a character, we were on to the next one. That being said, I know other people really liked that about the book’s style.

After what feels like weeks of pretty serious novels, the next one on my list, My Sister the Serial Killer should be a dose of something completely different. Drop me a line and let me know what you’re reading lately! Until next time, happy reading!

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: A Review

“The marsh did not confine them but defined them and, like any sacred ground, kept their secrets deep.” – Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

Sorry for the stock photo on this post, folks, but I already lent my copy of Where the Crawdads Sing away before I remembered to snap a picture for the blog. I guess it speaks to how good the novel is that I was handing it over to a friend before I even got my review done. The story opens with the discovery of the body of Chase Andrews, a local hero – handsome, star of his football team back in high school, heir to a properous family business – his death becomes the source of speculation and gossip. The circumstances of Chase’s death don’t add up, and quickly the sheriff starts to suspect foul play. The town’s eyes turn to Kya Clark, known by residents as the ‘Marsh Girl’. The narrative moves back and forth between the on-going police investigation into Chase’s death and Kya’s experiences growing up alone in the marsh.

Most of Where the Crawdads Sing is set in a coastal marsh in North Carolina in the 1960s where Kya makes her home. It is a story of isolation and loss, but also of redemption and hope. As a child, Kya is poor and ends up abandoned by her family. Having lost everyone she loves and terrified of ending up in foster care and taken from her beloved marsh, Kya fends for herself and shies away from the company of others. Living in her family’s shack on the edge of a lagoon, her experiences are largely coloured by loneliness and isolation as she struggles to survive. Her greatest desire is to connect to other people but her unconventional life and the prejudices of the town against the ‘marsh people’ make it seemingly impossible for her to develop relationships. Despite the adversity of her circumstances, in many ways Kya is able to triumph and seems on the verge of finally making a life for herself when Chase’s body was found.

While the framework of the novel seems to be a basic murder mystery in the beginning, this book is so much more. Owens writes poignently about the marsh that sustains Kya over the years and rather than just the setting, the marsh seems to permeate every aspect of the novel. I am not someone normally drawn to nature writing, but Owens’ depictions of the marsh are beautifully handled and evoke a deep sense of place and time. The novel centers around big themes like love, hope and betrayal without becoming sentimental or sacchrine. Owens grounds the reader so well in Kya’s world that you are pulling for her right from the beginning and the novel’s turns mean that the storyline continues to surprise.

I originally bought my copy of Where the Crawdads Sing months ago and then kind of relegated it to my To Read Pile because the blurb made it sound a bit trite. I am so glad that a recommendation encouraged me to bump it up on my reading list because I thouroughly enjoyed it. It’s a really interesting exploration of human nature in all its cruelty and kindness but mostly, I think it’s Owens love letter to the landscape in which the book is set. If you read Where the Crawdads Sing, let me know what you thought. Also, if you, like me, weren’t one hundred percent sure what a crawdad is, they’re crayfish (and they don’t really sing, but they do kind of make a clicking sound). Thanks, Google.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: A Review

“If you want to see what this nation is all about, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America. It was a joke, then, from the start. There was only darkness outside the windows on her journeys, and only ever would be darkness.” – Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

Most of us know the history of the underground railroad, but not as Colson Whitehead has reimagined it. The novel opens on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Cora is a third-generation slave; her grandmother is dead and her mother ran off years ago, meaning that Cora has grown up a ‘stray’ – a child with no family around her – and has had to learn to protect her own interests. Whitehead’s rendering of the plantation where Cora lives is bleak and heartbreaking. She is without prospects or hope until Caesar, another slave, talks her into running north with him.

What follows is an escape that leads through South Carolina, North Carolina and eventually into Tennessee and Indiana. There are many things that make the novel unique. Whitehead has chosen to make the underground railroad an actual set of tunnels and tracks running beneath the South where free blacks and sympathetic whites risk their lives to help enslaved people escape to freedom. This fantastic element in the novel means that the reader’s focus is more on the individual states where Cora surfaces, rather than on the journeys between states. In Colson Whitehead’s America, each state is unique in trying to “deal” with its black population – South Carolina invests in what it calls “negro uplift” to try to integrate black Americans into white society; North Carolina introduces race laws to drive black people from the state and replace them with cheap white labor from Europe. In Indiana, black people have gained a degree of freedom and prosperity but their security is always threatened by the shadow of racism. While the railroad that ferries Cora away from the plantation is the stuff of imagination, many of the other seemingly fantastical elements Whitehead introduces are not: there were attempts by health agencies in the US to sterilize members of the black community (and others) in order to reduce the numbers of black children being born; black men were unknowingly a part of studies on the impact of syphilis but led to believe they were receiving free health care from the US government. Black people were regularly lynched by mobs who went largely unpunished for their murders. Whitehead meddles with history in terms of locations and time frames so that each state Cora flees to represents an amalgam of ways in which white America tried to use, manipulate and sometimes terrorize the black population.

Given its heavy subject matter, it may be surprising to learn how readable this novel is. It is fast-paced and the characters are sympathetic and their sacrifices are many. Whitehead reveals how black and white Americans came together in unexpected ways to reinforce or fight against the systems of oppression that America was built on. While it covers much of the history dealt with in other novels, like Lawrence Hill’s Book of Negroes, Whitehead’s feels like a commentary on the racial undercurrents of contemporary American society. The book poses compelling questions about the country’s past and its present; according to one of Whitehead’s characters, America is a delusion but, “sometimes a useful delusion is better than a useless truth.” Despite the suffering and injustice the novel reveals, there is always hope. The number of people who help Cora along her journey at significant risk to themselves reinforces that the system can be beaten, and may someday finally be broken.

If fantasy isn’t your genre, I wouldn’t let it deter you from The Underground Railroad. It reads far more like historical fiction and the railroad itself is a negligible part of the plot, despite its significance as a metaphor. Cora is a character to root for and Whitehead’s writing is powerful and page-turning. If you read this novel, I’d love to hear what you think. Until next time, happy reading!

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson: A Review

“It is so long since the sacrifice was made, I was so young at the time, it took so many years for me to realize I had made it, that I can no longer say what, exactly, it was that I sacrificed; what it was that would have given me the satisfaction Edward feels every day. Perhaps it was the trip to Denmark—that could have been enough. But the blank space in my life feels too great to be overwritten by so slight an act.” – Anne Youngson, Meet Me at the Museum

Sometimes, I just like a book about ordinary lives. There is something about connecting to characters’ experiences that could be those of relatives or neighbours that I find oddly soothing. Meet Me at the Museum is told through an exchange of letters between Tina, a farmer’s wife in East Anglia, and Anders, a Danish museum curator. When Tina’s best friend dies of breast cancer, she feels compelled to send a letter of regret to a Danish professor they wrote to as girls. The professor’s specialty was the Tollund Man – an Iron Age man found almost perfectly preserved in Danish peat – which fascinated Tina and Bella from their youth. They had always planned to go and see Tollund Man but life got in the way, then Bella died and Tina is left filled with regret and loss. The professor, of course, is long dead when Tina writes to him and so her letter is answered by Anders, who also seeks to answer some of the questions she posed. Anders too, is suffering a loss and as the letters go back and forth between England and Denmark, the pair are able to express more about their feelings and their views on life than either ever would with their friends or families.

The plot of this novel is deceivingly simple and the characters are forthright with each other in a way that means there is no guile or intrigue to the story. Both characters are older and as they put it, have more of their lives behind than in front of them. What makes Youngson’s book so relatable is that the characters are searching for the meaning in their own lives. Neither is famous, nor rich, nor powerful. In their youth, both made choices that set their lives on trajectories they didn’t imagine at the time. It is a slow read in the sense that there is almost a meditative quality to it – I think you are supposed to stop and turn the questions over in your mind along with the characters. There is much in the novel that you could call quaint or charming, but not in a way that is clichéd. Youngson adds in these lovely elements – like scraps of Seamus Heaney poems, a story told by a mother to her daughter and an extended metaphor of picking raspberries – that add layers of depth and keep the story from seeming trite. Tina and Anders both come across as real people who hold sometimes surprising – and sometimes clashing – opinions. Toward the end of the novel when Tina faces a personal crisis that causes her to stop writing, the reader cannot help but think that it is only Anders – someone she has never met – who can help her navigate the situation.

The novel includes an interesting (but not overbearing) dose of Iron Age history as the Tollund Man is Tina and Anders’ touchstone. Tollund Man’s story is surprisingly moving. The museum where Anders works actually exists and if you are curious (like I was) you can visit the Museum Silkeborg to find out more about how Tollund Man died … so I guess I did meet them at the museum, at least virtually.

If you are looking for a novel where not very much happens with a heartwarming story, Meet Me at the Museum might be your next read.

Until next time, happy reading!

The Power by Naomi Alderman: A Review

“These things are happening all at once. These things are one thing. They are the inevitable result of all that went before. The power seeks its outlet. These things have happened before; they will happen again. These things are always happening.” – Naomi Alderman, The Power

It’s not often that you read a book that scares you and makes you laugh and think, “something about this book makes it feel important” all at the same time. The Power is the rare combination of thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining. The story is mainly told through the voices of four main protagonists in the wake of an earth-changing event: teenage girls, and then women, are able to shoot electricity through their hands. Almost overnight, women become more physically powerful than men. There is an almost joyous sense in the beginning of the book as women who have been oppressed and exploited are able to defend and free themselves from the men who victimize them. As their power grows, there are even indications that there may be entire nations led by women, policed by women and free of the old ways of doing business. And then things, well … they kind of take a turn, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

There are so many things to recommend The Power. It is by turns frightening and sad and thrilling and funny. Alderman is so smart – as someone with an English background, there were times when I would pause and think, “wait, how did she just do that?” and then have to go back and read through the section again. If it sounds like I’m gushing, it’s because I am. The writing has a cinematic quality to it and you can see Alderman’s descriptions unfolding in front of you. Although the novel covers a decade, the pacing is strong and there was never a point where I felt the story lag. What was most compelling to me was how real the alternative present Aldermen created felt. The ability of women to shoot electricity out of their hands aside, everything in the novel felt like it could be happening right now because by and large, it is. Alderman pulls from politics and religion, history and Internet forms, media and academia to hold a mirror up to society. As women grow more powerful in the book, some of them also grow to abuse that power. Scenes where men are attacked or afraid to walk alone at night were terrifying but with the roles were reversed, it also made me realize how desensitized we are to hearing these same stories from women. As the novel progresses it slowly becomes clear that everyone wants the same thing: to be safe; but not everyone can have what they want.

This is not a book about gender wars, nor is it casting blame on one side or another. Through the novel, Alderman seeks to explore what power does to our humanity and ultimately sees power and the desire to wield it as part of what it means to be human.

I normally don’t read a lot of speculative fiction but several people recommended this book to me and I am glad that they did. Sometimes I think as readers we need a nudge out of our comfort zones – it’s easy to run the risk of letting the genre determine what you read and what you avoid. For what it’s worth, I think The Power is worth picking up. Beyond Alderman’s clear abilities as a storyteller, the story she is telling is an important one for our times.

Until next time, happy reading!

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal: A Review

“The pages didn’t really matter. The women could retell them. There were recordings. What Nikki wanted to do was talk to Kulwinder. Explain how these stories came about. Compel her to see that these women who had started one quiet rebellion could come together to fight a bigger injustice.” – Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

I have to confess right from the start that this novel really surprised me. Based on what I had heard, I was expecting something light and fun and while it definitely is fun and funny, it also digs into some pretty weighty issues. Set in the Punjabi community in Southall, a part of London, the main character, Nikki, accepts a job teaching Punjabi widows to read and write. Or at least, that is what she is told to do by her conservative boss, Kulwinder. The widows have other ideas. Rather than learning to read and write, they want to tell stories … erotic stories. (Like the kind of erotic stories that will make you blush if you are reading them in public.) What I hadn’t realized before reading this book is that in the Sikh community, if a man dies, his widow is never supposed to remarry. For the women in the writing group, the erotic stories were a way of recapturing a part of their lives that was gone forever, or of attempting to live out fantasies that their marriages had never provided.

The story reveals a lot of the ways the inhabitants of Southall are supported and constricted by their community. Nikki is the daughter of Indian immigrants to England. She is caught between her parents’ culture and that of the London she grew up in. She wants to be a “modern” girl, living apart from her parents, avoiding arranged marriage and choosing a career for herself, but after quitting law school and the death of her father, Nikki is adrift. She sees teaching the writing class as a way to make a difference for the women in her community being oppressed by traditional gender roles. The way the story unfolds juxtaposes notions of modern and traditional, East and West, and the roles of women and men in the community. Jaswal does an excellent job of creating women who feel real – they are kind and generous and backbiting and petty – and as a result, the reader greatly empathizes with their problems. The roles duty and honour play in the Sikh community are closely examined as they are often used to hold the community together and hide its sins. Far from being just chick-lit or a rom com, Jaswal uses the erotic story-writing group as a means of exploring so much about Southall’s Punjabi community in a way that is both fond and critical. One thing that dawned on me only after I read the novel is despite their circumstances, every single female character in this novel is strong. The novel also includes a subplot surrounding the mysterious death of Kulwinder’s daughter that keeps you turning the pages. There is a little bit of everything for readers here: romance, mystery, family drama and coming-of-age.

This is an excellent novel. I love books that allow you a glimpse into the lives of people in a way your real life would never let you experience and Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows definitely ticks that box. Jaswal surrounds all the issues she confronts in the book with great storytelling. It’s funny and thought-provoking and ultimately uplifting so I guess what I’m saying is, you really should read it. If you do, let me know what you think. Until next time, happy reading!

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: A Review

“Someone always pays. Bullet don’t have nobody’s name on it, that’s what people say. I think the same is true for vengeance. Maybe even for love. It’s out there, random and deadly, like a tornado.” – Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

This is an incredible novel. It is told through the voices of Roy, Celestial and Andre. Celestial and Andre are childhood best friends who grew up in a black, middle class neighborhood in Atlanta. In college, Andre introduces Celestial to Roy, a young man from rural Louisiana with a lot of ambition. When the novel opens, Celestial and Roy are already newlyweds; there are indications of cracks forming in their marriage. Then Roy is convicted of a violent crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison for twelve years.

The story becomes a love triangle between Celestial and Roy, who try to hold their relationship together, and Celestial and Andre, the best friend she turns to when she can no longer fit her life dreams inside her role of being an inmate’s wife. Five years into his jail term, when Roy’s sentence is overturned and he is unexpectedly released, he heads back to Atlanta to see what, if anything, remains of his marriage. Celestial is left to choose between her husband and the man who has always been there for her. The love story is heartbreaking in its complexity. Through their voices, Jones’s depicts the strengths and flaws of her characters so that they read like real people. Jones’s use first-person narration for each character means that their desires and motivations are stripped raw – the reader understands the events unfolding from all three perspectives and this heightens the emotional tensions Jones creates. Jones has crafted the three narrator’s voices together so seamlessly in places that it is almost like you are able to understand the obstacles that confront the characters through a layering of perspective that resonates in terms of its complexity. It creates a strong sense of what each stands to lose or gain – but even the gains will come at the expense of each other and there is no easy path out.

Jones’s examination of the impact of race, class and gender roles on the black community in the American south runs like a harmony beneath the love story. So many of the decisions the characters make are informed by what is expected of someone who is black, or female, or wealthy. They are never free of those expectations and choosing to buck them comes with consequence. Celestial’s marriage becomes political even within her own family – her father sees her choice to begin a relationship with Andre as a betrayal not only of her marriage vows, but of her community. Roy is a wrongfully convicted black man in a state and a country that disproportionately convicts people of African descent. To her father, Celestial’s decision means turning her back on the injustices that black men face in America and on her role as a black woman where the expectation is to support her man despite the personal cost. The book is a powerful reminder about the vulnerability of people in a society where race and class can determine your fate and the system doesn’t protect you.

If I had to describe this novel in one word it would be powerful. At times the emotional suffering of the characters weighs heavy but Jones’s writing is so compelling and the characters she creates are so real that pacing never slows. I read this book really quickly. I think if you like Celeste Ng’s novels, then Jones is likely an author who will speak to you.

Have you read An American Marriage? Drop me a line and let me know. Until next week, happy reading!

February Line Up

Since it’s February, the theme this month will be “love” in honor of Valentine’s Day but before you go breaking out the Harlequins, you should know that I am not exactly a roses and chocolates kind of gal so I tried to choose books that would avoid all the cliched bodice ripping and come at the theme in unique ways.

February 9, 2019: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

This book appeared on just about every “best of 2018” list I came across. Set in contemporary Atlanta, it is the story of newlyweds Celestial and Roy. While their marriage is troubled from the beginning, they seem passionately in love. Then Roy is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. After five years, Roy’s sentence is overturned and he is free but when he returns, it is uncertain whether Celestial still considers herself his wife. Her career as an artist has taken off and she is in a relationship with her childhood best friend, Andre. When Roy arrives on her doorstep a free man, Celestial is left to choose between continuing to build a life with Andre, or trying to save her marriage.

February 16, 2019: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

This novel is about a group of women who join a writing class in London’s Punjabi community. The main character, Nikki, realizes that her students, mostly Sikh widows, have a wealth of memories and fantasies to share and their little community begins to express their creativity and secrets within the confines of the class. But a group called the Brothers threatens to expose their scandalous stories in reaction to what they see as the failings of the women’s morality. The book speaks to the power of women’s communities and stories while remaining heart-warming and funny.

February 23, 2019: The Power by Naomi Alderman

This is another book that made a lot of “best of” lists when it was published in 2016. The Power is a little nod to those of you who might be looking for something a little anti-Valentine’s to read this February. It was recommended to me by a couple of friends who said they couldn’t get through it fast enough. Set in a world that seems like ours, a new force emerges – women and teenage girls have suddenly developed incredible strength and they can cause pain or even death with only the slightest effort. With this one change, everything we recognize shifts drastically. I find speculative fiction like this interesting because in inventing a new world, it often provokes questions about our own.

So here they are, the February reads for 2019 and not a Danielle Steele to be seen. If you are planning to read any of these, or have already beat me to them, I would love to hear your thoughts. Until next time, happy reading!

Melmoth by Sarah Perry: A Review

“No librarians yet at their post, the ranks of desks miserably empty, like sockets from which teeth had been pulled.” – Sarah Perry, Melmoth

Well everyone, it finally happened. I wondered when I started this little project when I would start a book I couldn’t finish. This was the one. I was so excited to read Melmoth. The reviews were outstanding and I loved the idea behind the story but readers, I have to be honest, I could not get through this book. I debated making myself finish it since I chose it for the blog, but years ago a wise librarian convinced me that life is too short to make yourself finish reading books you don’t like. So I didn’t. Besides, I decided that explaining why I couldn’t get through it is a review of a sort, so here were go:

Keeping in mind I only made it as far as page 80, I have to say I had a really hard time connecting to this novel. The narrative style is overly wordy in a way that seems like Perry is trying to mimic earlier Gothic writers (think Poe: words, words, words) but to me it felt artificial. The novel is set in modern times so at best it was unnecessary but at worst it felt like Perry was trying too hard to evoke Gothic tropes. The characters were really flat. They seldom express much emotion and when they do, they are kind of awful – one of the characters longs to get away from his wife because she has been paralyzed by a stroke and looking after her depresses him; another rejects other children who try to befriend him because they are nice. I am not kidding. I have read books before where the characters are purposefully unlikable but these ones were also oddly devoid of interesting traits. Even in their pettiness or jealousy or cruelty, they failed to elicit enough of a reaction for me to even care if Melmoth the Witness came and devoured them all in the end (or whatever it is Melmoth does, I guess I’ll never know). I couldn’t like them enough to worry for them or hate them enough to root for their destruction. Characters the reader doesn’t care about is never a good sign.

Before giving up entirely, I went back and read some reviews. I thought there had to be something I was missing. Certainly in the past, I have had to take a couple of running starts at a book before I really got into it and I was hoping the reviews would spur me into action. But as a I scrolled down past all the 5 star reviews that called Perry’s work “sublime” or “masterful”, I found my people. The 1 star reviews that said what I was thinking. The characters in this book are not people I would ever want to sit next to at a dinner party. The writing, while beautiful in places is also really boring at times. And according to the intrepid reviewers who made it all the way to the end, that doesn’t change. There was one common descriptor: depressing.

And with that, suspicions confirmed, I firmly shut the book. There are too many other books I want to read.

Have you ever given up on a book or do you finish whatever you start? I know readers tend to fall into one category or the other so I would love to hear from you. And if you read and loved (or hated) Melmoth, I would be interested to hear that too. Until next time, happy reading!

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: A Review

“Later – and for the rest of his life – James will struggle to piece words to this feeling, and he will never quite manage to say, even to himself, what he really means. At this moment he can think only one thing: how was it possible, he wonders, to have been so wrong.” – Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

In this novel, Celeste Ng explores what happens to a family when one of the children, Lydia, dies. The circumstances of Lydia’s death are unclear – she left the house in the middle of the night, and later she was found, drowned in the local lake. The family struggles to come to terms with her death – was it murder? An accident? Suicide? And in seeking the answers, they begin to tear apart their bonds as a family. The parents, Marilyn and James Lee, and Lydia’s two remaining siblings, Nath and Hannah, are left protecting their secrets – and each other’s – as they struggle with their grief.

Ng excels at writing work that is both page-turning and deeply sympathetic to her characters. The tension created by Lydia’s death and the resulting reactions of her family developed so much tension that my chest actually felt tight as I read this book. It was only near the end, when Ng reveals the truth about what actually happened to Lydia that I felt like I was able to breathe again. Her writing evokes the vulnerability, loss and pain of her characters so realistically that at times I found it hard to keep reading. Marilyn and James, both thwarted in their own ambitions through circumstance, seek to realize their dreams through their children. The ambitions the Lees have – especially for Nath and Lydia, the two oldest – come from a place of love and the desire to create a better life for them, but result in both children hiding their true selves in an attempt to match themselves to the visions their parents have of them. Only Hannah, the youngest and often ignored child, notices all the small things the others miss: a significant look, a forgotten item, the sound of the front door opening and closing in the middle of the night.

The novel is an exploration of the ways in which families can both save and surrender us. They are the keepers of the deepest secrets, creators of the sharpest cuts. The Lee family clearly loves each other and this makes the story even more painful as the loss of Lydia drives them apart. Ng mingles perception, memory and truth to examine how complicated it is to truly see another, even those we think we know the best.

I have to say between this book and Little Fires Everywhere, any new novels by Celeste Ng will likely go straight to the top of my TRP. Have you read Everything I Never Told You? Drop me a line and let me know what you think. Until next time, happy reading!