Book #2 Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Everything I Never Told You


Everything I Never Told You is the story of Lydia Lee who is already dead when the novel begins, though her family don't know that yet. It initially appears to be heading into the territory occupied by The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, but instead becomes a very different kind of story unique unto itself.

I felt that the story was the embodiment of the famous Philip Larkin poem 'This Be The Verse'. The more we learn about the lives of the Lees, the more we see how their entire dysfunction has been created by the emotional baggage both parents have carried through from their own childhoods, which then accidentally dictates their interactions with their own children. Or more specifically, Lydia.

James is Chinese and his wife Marilyn is All American. The children and the couple themselves face the kind of prejudice as a mixed race family one would expect from small town 1970's USA.

Though they have three children, all the hopes of both parents have fallen upon their middle child, Marilyn's by design and James's by accident and they each want for her everything they feel they failed to have. A parenting mistake that is never rectified has led older son Nath to be overshadowed, and unplanned youngest child Hannah is almost deliberately ignored.   

Though it begins as a novel about her, there is some great writing which shows that if anything as the novel progresses Lydia becomes more and more a ghost, less and less knowable and as a result the situation becomes so much more tragic, in many senses as realistically forgotten whilst living as either of her siblings.

It also manages to cleverly subvert a couple of story cliches I think, the dead girl in a small town cliche generally, and 'the Clever Asian Kid' cliche.

It is mournful and it has this pervading sadness without being depressing,  People think of love as a tremendously positive thing, and neither parent is a bad or evil person, but loving in the way they think of as loving.  It is almost an elegy to the harm we can do we with love. And this is what makes it noteworthy and this is what it makes it haunting, as a family filled with silent despair finally implodes.    

9/10

2015 Challenge :A book you can finish in a day.
     

Book #13 The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower is about a boy named Charlie and his first year of high school. During this year he sends regular letters to an anonymous and by the sounds of things random recipient, because he just needs to feel like someone's listening.

His best friend had in the previous year committed suicide, and upon joining high school Charlie becomes a hanger-on in an older group, but is still very much on the outside looking in. 

The sad thing about this book is that I am now 30, and I think I have now passed the point at which adolescent angst appeals to me, either in book form or in the movies. I read this book largely because I knew there was a forthcoming film featuring Emma Watson, and I prefer to read books first.
Having read The Perks Of Being A Wallflower I doubt I will bother with the film.

I have read many books about teenage girls and boys over the years, I spent most of my adolescence reading. There is nothing unique about The Perks Of Being A Wallflower in terms of subject matter that I haven't seen or read before. It covers the usual ground, teen relationships, sexuality, drug taking, school, family dynamics and a secret straight out of Fast Times At Ridgemont High. I also disliked the authorial voice of Charlie in his missives to the unknown correspondent. It was very childish despite his advanced academic status. I actually found myself wondering more about his recipient and whether they were interested in or profoundly irritated by his letters.

I appreciate that many first time comers to books of this type will have really loved it and identified with it, and I don't want to denigrate that experience. But, trust me fellow readers there are way better books of this type out there. 5/10