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Everything I Never Told You
by Celeste Ng. Abacus 2014. (fiction; paperback; ISBN 978 0349 134284)
‘Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.’ It is the novel’s opening line, beginning almost where other novels might end. ‘They’, of course, are the teenager’s family, and to a great extent it is the thoughts, feelings, experiences and personal histories of the parents, Marilyn and James, and of the other children, Nath and Hannah, which the story richly explores. As much as all the grief and terrible sense of loss the family naturally feels, what troubles them and begins to pull this home apart, is the nagging question of why Lydia drowned in the nearby lake. The novel dispenses almost entirely with police procedures and officialdom in order to explore how the main characters try to explain this dreadful circumstance to themselves. The story is carefully told through their individual perspectives, for each has fragments of knowledge or understanding to contribute to the whole, until by the end the reader alone knows the ‘everything’ of the title.
Another interesting factor is that the family is Chinese-American, living in 1970s Ohio, and that – despite their various attempts to conform – society seems to marginalise them, contriving always to put them into some sort of normative box. The father, Professor James Lee, was born in the USA of Chinese parents, but is still asked the difference between a spring roll and an egg roll. Marilyn’s mother more or less disowns her son-in-law at the marriage ceremony. Brother and sister always sit together on the school bus. The pressure, it emerges, is on the one hand not to stand out as different, and on the other to excel beyond mere success. Hannah, the youngest daughter, while spared the pressure, is meanwhile given little love or attention.
Everything I never Told You is a moving and rewarding tale, whose measured pace allows the reader to piece together meaning without simple attributions of blame. I look forward to reading the author’s Little Fires Everywhere (2017), which has received similar praise.
Ray

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This book is about a young girl called Willow Moss who lives in a world called Starfell where some people have magical powers.Willow hasa power.Finding things that are lost.She really under value her power in the beginning of the book ,(This would be a great ability for me.)One day,Tuesday goes missing and no one can remember what they did on that day.Willow sets out to find the missing day with Moreg Vaine,an infamous witch who is consider crazy.
Pros
1.I really liked Willow’s character development in the story.For instance in the beginning she starts out as a girl who underestimate her powers and herself but at the end of story she does not let people walk all over her.
2.In the stories,there is quite a few minor characters who you get to know really well and characters with a great courage in them.
Cons
1.The only dislike about this book is that there is loads of characters which makes it hard to remember all of them.
Therefore,I give this book 3.5 stars.

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Mick Herron is a comparatively new spy thriller writer and if you have not read any of his books I suggest you start! If you decide to give him a go read “Slow Horses” first. It is in first book in this genre and although they all stand alone it will give you a feel for the characters who will appear in subsequent books. “Slow Horses” concerns the activities of a group of British agents who have messed up in some way and have been put out to grass. All the books, he has published four so far, are written with humour but also exciting investigations. Give him a try.

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Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is the only book I have read a greater number of times than Pride and Prejudice. I do know for a fact they will both become my two “read-again-and-again” gems.

Hats off to Jane Austen for writing such a masterpiece that absolutely never disappoints: this novel is 370 pages of pure genius and utter brilliance. Having now read it three times (and of course watched the 1995 series billions of times), I feel like I know this story and its wonderful themes inside out! Full of messages like not taking unnecessary dislikes to people, good nature despite conflict, understanding everybody has reasons for outward appearance, and generally BEING POSITIVE.

This one follows the five Bennet sisters: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia. It also includes their very crazy, eccentric, society mother and their down-to-earth, sceptically witty and hilarious father. The story mainly focuses on Elizabeth Bennet but it does follow the love stories of nearly all the girls. Again, this is a book set in a similar time period and they live in a society in which women were socially obliged to marry well and therefore, Mrs. Bennet wants all her daughters to marry well so it will look good for the family.

At the beginning of the book, we meet a number of characters, one of which is the much-well-known Mr. Darcy! We meet Mr. Darcy and we find out that he is very proud and stern; he tends to look down his nose at people a lot and he’s very upper-class. Because of that, Elizabeth Bennet, who is very lively and generally finds amusement in people like that, develops a lot of prejudice against him. (Hence the title: Pride and Prejudice!)
Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy (this isn’t a spoiler as it’s on the blurb!) have a love story going on and the book follows them as Darcy overcomes his pride and Lizzie overcomes her prejudice and their story follows on from there!

Elizabeth Bennet was another fantastic Jane Austen character, very lively and out there, always took things well, and got the perfect balance between positivity and maturity. She is my absolute favourite Jane Austen heroine. Jane Bennet was another character who I really understood, and the journey the poor girl has to go on throughout the novel. Mrs. Bennet is MAD and the chemistry between her and the hilariously sceptical Mr. Bennet is just perfect.

Mr. Darcy, I think, is my favourite Jane Austen hero because he is just so socially anxious and DREADFUL with girls that you can’t help but love him as he is revealed to be as charming and as emotionally strong and good-natured as he is. Mr. Darcy is there with Elinor Dashwood (S+S) and Lizzy as some of my all-time favourite Austen characters.

I don’t need to say anything about the writing: flawless.
What I will say is that, for me, this is one of those books which you read and you know from the first chapter whether or not you’ll love it or hate it. Personally, I absolutely clicked with this from Page 1.

But what I admire about this more than anything are the messages behind it. All of them are interwoven ingeniously into the story; it is full of morals one could take away from it.

You do not have to be an iconic, extroverted, popular society figure in order to be a good person;
Even if two people have differences, if they both have good morals, the situation can be resolved;
If someone has a bad opinion of you or insults you, don’t dwell on it and be the drama queen – just don’t care about it and carry on with life;
People who appear unlikeable socially can have different and truer personalities elsewhere; the same applies to you yourself;
Listen to both sides of the story;
Just be positive!

I can’t say anything more: it’s Pride and Prejudice! Obviously it’s fantastic! The story’s beautiful; the characters are wonderful; it’s marvellously written and the whole thing is a total gem of complete perfection.

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This book has recently been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal: a literary award which celebrates recently published teenage fiction. As I am a secondary school student and Wymondham High has a very active library, I, with a team of other pupils and our librarian, review the shortlist each year and publish our reviews. (It certainly acts as an incentive for me to read books that aren’t just classics!)

Some of the time, I do not gel brilliantly with some of the books: Rook, however, was not too bad at all! I ended up quite enjoying it.

Essentially, this book follows two young brothers named Kenny and Nicky who live with their divorced dad and his girlfriend. Their father is a little dysfunctional and is trying to sort his life out; Nicky is secondary school age and Kenny is slightly younger. In the opening of the book, the two boys are on a dog walk and they find a rook (hence the title) which has just been attacked by a sparrowhawk and is lying on the ground bedraggled and dying. Kenny, with his young personality, is desperate to take this animal home and nurse it better, to which Nicky eventually does agree. The two boys subsequently take the animal home.

Other various subplots include Nicky having a crush on somebody at school for his first time, that girl’s elder brother who torments and bullies Nicky, whilst also dealing with family issues between the two brothers and their father. The book continues as follows really!

Contrary to inevitable belief upon looking at the cover and blurb, this book does leave you with a lot to say and a lot to think about after finishing it in terms of what themes it discusses. However, something I will say immediately before going into themes is that this did not feel like reading a novel: it felt like reading a short story.
That is not a bad thing! The book is 123 pages long and it has possibly the biggest font I have ever seen in a book that is not a children’s book or a picture book. It does certainly feel like the sort of book you could read in one sitting – I read it in an evening – and because of the big font and small page count, the story feels like it comes and goes very quickly. That I really liked about this!

I would not have wanted this book any longer than it was: I feel that extending its length would have been a push on the boundaries of reader-patience. But I think that because it was so short, I was able to enjoy it as much as I could possibly enjoy it. The themes were conveyed and stuck in my mind as well as they could possibly have done because there was no boredom or exasperation with the book going on too long. No exasperation meant the positive qualities of the book stuck in my mind and it meant that I have even been starting to enjoy a Carnegie shortlisted book. A quick in-and-out style suited this book perfectly as it got its point across very concisely and with no difficulty for the reader.

In terms of themes, this book really surprised me! The main two plotpoints really are finding the rook and seeing how its condition improves, and Nicky’s massive crush on his girl at school. But regardless of that, those plot areas were not really the point of the book, per se; the main focus, for me, was learning to deal and co-operate with family, atonement for past mistakes, doing the right thing even if it is the hardest thing, endurance during hard times, the benefits of that, not retaliating to vile people, the consequences of succumbing to retaliation, and learning to accept the world as it is without telling small lies to cover up the harshness of the world.

A brilliant way the latter is illustrated is through the rook storyline: Kenny, of course, is desperate for this messed up, vulnerable bird to live after suffering such a vicious attack. Whereas Nicky, with more maturity and also with age and being a teenager, he is thinking that Kenny needs to be spoon fed the cruel reality of life. He disapproves of his dad saying to Kenny “do not worry; your bird will be fine” because the lies are protecting him and not exposing him to the cold reality that Kenny needs, in Nicky’s opinion, to be exposed to.

Additionally, it turns out quite early on that Kenny has a best friend at school who claims that he is Doctor Who (the fun of children) and that he has all these powers. In reality, he has showed Kenny a few card tricks and basic magic up-the-sleeve illusions and that has convinced Kenny enough considering he is very young. As the book goes on and more trauma accumulates, Nicky becomes more exasperated at this and thinks to himself ‘Kenny needs to know’.
There are lots of other themes in this book as well: there was certainly an emphasis placed on making up for mistakes and doing the right thing even if it is very difficult. Through all that, there was an extra message of sticking through rough and hard times in order to eventually get the best eventual outcome and how if one does not do that, the outcomes can vary and change much for the worst.

I could sit here for a long while writing about how all of the themes mentioned in bold above are used and interwoven into the plot of this book. It certainly is not a book which will let you down in terms of themes. In that respect, it did very well indeed!

As a short story itself, it also was quite satisfactory. The storyline as a whole was very poignant and very meaningful. I liked very much how there was more than one storyline and the two storylines were fairly different so they seemed unconnected and added more variety to the story but then at the same time, they still shared very relevant themes.
Overall, I would recommend this to people who like books with themes and also to people who like short stories. I will say that if you do not like books that are very much focused around young teenagers and if you do not like books that can get quite angsty, I would NOT go for this book. I usually am that person and I did not suffer from that when reading this book but I certainly can see why some readers still would; I would therefore caution against that.

Overall, however, this was a very satisfying start to the Carnegie reviewing. Therefore I would recommend it based on what is said above.