Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng

 

Characters

James Lee Marilyn Lee – wife, briefly disappeared Lydia Nathan Hannah   Jack Wolff Dr. Janet Wolff – single mother   Louisa Chen – James TA   Marilyn’s mother – Home Economics teacher, disapproved of marriage   James’ parents – maintenance man and cafeteria lady at prestigious school, James got free tuition

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from hardback edition.

1. What did you think when you read the first sentence and paragraph?  Did it grab your interest?
2. Discuss Marilyn and her mother and their relationship.   Why didn’t they have any contact for eight years after Marilyn’s marriage?  Do you think her mother regretted this? 
3. Did you feel sorry for Marilyn’s mother?  How did her expectations influence Marilyn?
4. When Marilyn left the family, why did Lydia hide her grandmother’s cookbook when she knew Marilyn was returning home?   Why did Marilyn stop cooking?
5. How did Marilyn’s relationship with her mother influence her relationship with her daughter, Lydia? 
6. What effect did Marilyn’s attention have on Lydia and her future?
7. What effect did the focus on Lydia by both James and Marilyn have on Nathan and Hannah?  
8. Why did Lydia never write in any of the yearly journals her mother gave her?
9. Why didn’t Lydia have any friends?   Would Marilyn and James have noticed this if they had really paid any attention to her?   Do you think James really knew what was happening when he gave her the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People?
10. Discuss Jack.    He didn’t really care about school or the fact that he was failing physics for the second time.   Would he have turned out differently if his mother had paid attention to him?  What do you think happened to him after the story ended?
11. Hannah was more perceptive than anyone realized.   Were you surprised at what Hannah noticed about Jack when everyone was swimming in chapter 8?  Watching Jack sitting next to Nathan, she “recognized it at once: love” (page 211).   How did this influence the ending of the novel?
12. Both Marilyn and James blamed what happened on Lydia being biracial.   Marilyn said, “If she were a white girl, they’d keep looking” and James said “If he were a white girl…none of this would ever have happened” (page 202).  Do you think this is true?
13. Do you think the family will change?   At the end of the novel, James plays with Hannah the way he used to with Lydia and Marilyn and James seem to reconnect (pages 279 – 285).
14. What do you think will happen to Nathan?
15. How do you think the story would have ended if Lydia had made it to the shore as she expected?