"Everything I Never Told You" by Celeste Ng Named Amazon Book of the Year 2014

Celeste Ng's melahcnoly family drama is a poignant portrait of grief, misguided love and missed opportunities.  "Everything…" is Ng's 1st novel.  It garnered numerous Best Book of the Year Awards in 2014.  "Girls at Play," Ng's short story collection received the Pushcart Prize 2012.   The matriach of the family, Marilyn, is one of the few co-eds in 1960.  She finds herself drawn to her history prof. James, the only Asian on campus.  Feeling sympathetic by the shameful bigotry towards the young prof., Marilyn seeks him outside class.  She makes a pass.  An affair ensues and the two marry despite  Marilyn's mother warnings.  She beseeches her not to marry James as "it's not right and she'll regret it."   What Marilyn regrets most is abandoing her medical studies to care for James & their 3 children.  Themes of feeling ostracized as an outsider are prevalent.  The bi-racial family live in a small, all-white,  midwest town.  Yet, it's the dynamics within the family that are most moving.  Ng's novel is both a gripping mystery and a poignant family drama.  The bonds between siblings: Nath, Lydia &  Hannah are each other's life-lines.  But, parental love becomes suffocating & toxic as it tilts towards a favored child.  Marilyn's resentment for her own shortcomings cause her to over burden Lydia.  For Lydia, it was hard to inherit her mother's dream.  "How suffocating to be so loved."  Ng's haunting novel navigates the grief and recriminations felt by parent's and siblings for what was left unsaid that may have prevented the tragedy of Lydia's death.  Happiness is fragile & easily shattered.  "Slowly, they will piece together other things that have never been said."  I'll tell you, read Ng's formidable debut.