Book Thoughts: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
After I read a book, I generally email my thoughts or notes to a friend. I'm now copying these first emails to this blog since it's easier to revisit.
Original Sent Date: December 3, 2024
Didn't like the start of this book but I think it accomplished what it set out to do and was an interesting look at a mixed race family in the '70s. I already knew the stuff about paper sons from an Asian American History course in college so I didn't really learn much interesting historical fact from this but the ways the characters' conflicts played out didn't feel stereotypical, which I appreciated. This was an audiobook for me again.
Other thoughts:
Not sure that I appreciate Hannah's role as basically being a replacement goldfish but I guess it's trying to give them a second chance.
My brain is romance-diseased because the mention of Jack's feelings for Nate and the whole pining situation there really made my gears spin and spit out scenes for them when I was lying in bed (which is also usually where I spin my whatever romance things usually based off of comics I've been reading).
I like the tension of trying to be the same and trying to be different, especially since it fits in with the whole race vs gender aspect. I think that was smartly chosen.
The affair thing was like. Really dude? Starting to think you have a thing for students you have power over. Though it worked in terms of what he was trying to replace by having a partner that was more "like" him.
The reason for Marilyn leaving in the past was really interesting since it wasn't romance-related.
Did a really good job of showing how parents can subliminally message and stifle their kids. I hope some bad parent out there has learned something from this. Who knows, though.
My sister recommended this book to me because I mentioned that I liked all the history parts of The Sun Is Also a Star even if I didn't like the actual romance of that. And well. There wasn't enough history but at least the characters were more interesting. But not that interesting that I would really recommend it to someone else el oh el