BOOK CLUB 2

BOOK REVIEW

"All The Things We Didn’t Say" is a book exploring a young girl’s emotions when her mother suddenly leaves the family and has no further contact with her.  Her father suffers a mental breakdown following this, but it is not all due to his wife leaving him.  He has a secret from the past which he has harboured since his teenage years.  From the beginning we are given an account of what this secret is and parts of it are revealed to our heroine along the way.  

The story isn’t just about Summer (the heroine) and her father.  Other characters are introduced who help to shape her understanding and growing up process.  Summer is a budding scientist and because of that I believe she wants the world to be black or white – no grey areas.  This is well illustrated in an episode when , after several years, she meets up with an old school friend whose young daughter may have inherited a life threatening disease from her father.  She immediately starts telling her old friend what she must do from a medical stance, not thinking of the emotional impact on her friend.

Everyone in my book club thought it was a depressing novel but I thought it was a triumph as Summer experiences so much for a young girl and comes through despite the twist at the end.

Sue Cross