The novel is about a mixed-race Chinese-American family whose middle daughter Lydia is found drowned in a nearby lake.

As the police investigate, her parents discover that, contrary to their belief that Lydia was popular and doing well in school, she was very lonely with almost no friends and her grades had severely slipped.

After graduation, James failed to secure a faculty position at Harvard, so he accepted an offer from the fictional Middlewood College in Ohio.

Marilyn had grown up judgmental about her homemaker mother (who also taught home economics at her high school) and longed to become a doctor.

Marilyn intended to resume her studies to become a doctor after their son, Nathan, was born, but after her second pregnancy, with Lydia, she continued as a homemaker for eight years.

Lydia begins to hang out with Jack, a next door neighbor whom Nathan hates, and who has a reputation for deflowering town girls.

Tracing her unhappiness to the time her brother pushed her into the lake, Lydia goes there late at night, intending to jump into the water and swim back to shore.

In the present, Marilyn discovers that after Lydia's death, James has begun an affair with one of his graduate students, Louisa Chen, who is also of Chinese descent.

The novel won the Amazon Book of the Year Award in 2014, beating out works by Stephen King and Hilary Mantel.

"[14] Similarly Mark Lawson of The Guardian praised the author's debut novel, writing "Ng brilliantly depicts the destruction that parents can inflict on their children and on each other.

"[15] The review concludes with Lawson noting, "Everything I Never Told You ranks with acute novels of family psycho-pathology such as Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World and Laura Lippman's What the Dead Know.

"[15] Kirkus Reviews noted "Ng's emotionally complex debut novel sucks you in like a strong current and holds you fast until its final secrets surface.

Annapurna TV bought the rights to Ng's novel and is planning to produce alongside A-Major.