My favourite quote from the book was, “To a parent, your child wasn’t just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once.”

This was a page-turning book for me. I couldn’t put it down. I loved how each character panned out in this universe. I loved the complexity and nuance in each character’s development. 

I think what this book does really well is that it refuses to provide its readers all of the answers. Rather than drawing a clear line between what’s right and wrong, each character makes decisions true to their lived experiences. This, I think, makes an even stronger case addressing the intersection between race, class and privilege because it illustrates the different perspectives a reader might have based on their socio-cultural background. 

I really loved Everything I Never Told You when I read it last year. Finishing LFE makes me want to pick up Ng’s first novel and savour it again. These stories, hurt, just like real life.