Risé Recommends

It's Saturday.  Let's look at another book recommended by my friend Risé, a retired librarian.  I've read this one, so the rating is mine.    I wrote about it HERE.

Everything I Never Told You ~ by Celeste Ng, 2014, fiction, 305 pages, 8/10

"Lydia is dead.  But they don’t know this yet."  So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio.  Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue.  But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.  A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing.  This is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

See these other books that my friend Risé has recommended (click on the titles):

• The 13th Gift: A True Story of a Christmas Miracle ~ by Joanne Huist Smith, 2014, memoir, 224 pages
• Lost Laysen ~ by Margaret Mitchell, 1996, novella, 128 pages
• The Fifth Child ~ by Doris Lessing, 1988, fiction, 144 pages
• Plum Wine ~ by Angela Davis-Gardner, 2006, fiction, 352 pages