This book opens with the discovery that a teenage girl is missing, and soon you find out that she's dead. Then it turns to the story of how her parents met, and how the family grew over time, shaping her, and how her family mourns her. I couldn't put it down

The story ends in the 1970s, so I would have assumed that racism they encounter is worse than you'd experience today, but I saw Celeste Ng at an event a few days ago, and she said that every slight she describes happened to her or someone she knows.

Ng was asked if Lydia's death was a suicide. Her answer was that when she was writing it, she knew what she thought happened, but the book belongs to the reader. Some people interpret it one any, others another, and that's the book they read.