4.5

While this book may not have given me that five-star feeling, I still really enjoyed it. I love the messages of family this book shared and I could see my own family reflected in Enzo's in a certain way which I have never experienced before. I also loved the way this book bounced between timelines to get a full view of the family. It felt like nothing was missed, even with a semi-open ending.

This was a beautiful book. I did find it interesting how there are so many books focusing on Mother/Daughter relationships but I cannot name on that focuses on Father/Son ones. I also loved learning about the Filipino culture.

This book is probably one of the better ones to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. However it felt a little slow to me.

Stars: 5 like his other YA book Patron Saints of Nothing, this one should be in the classrooms.
My Thoughts:

Like Patron Saints, Ribay gives us another deeply complex look at family, toxic masculinity, and the Filipino iexperience in America through the Maghabol males.

With multiple narrators, we see the four Maghabol males as young men and as fathers and grandfathers in each other's stories. As narrators to their own stories, they don't understand the motives and intention of their fathers, however, this was a satisfyingly sorrowful read for me. I found myself waking up to read more because I wanted Enzo to talk to his lolo Emil and share things that Enzo's dad Chris never knew/understood, or even wanted to hear. I wanted Francisco to find some kind of happiness and success that I knew must have happened through Emil's story, but we don't see the in between times. We just know from the other stories. I love that strategy. As a reader, it helps me to stay fully engaged, which is why there is so much to do with this book in the English classroom.

From the Publisher:
Watsonville, 1930. Francisco Maghabol barely ekes out a living in the fields of California. As he spends what little money he earns at dance halls and faces increasing violence from white men in town, Francisco wonders if he should’ve never left the Philippines.

Stockton, 1965. Between school days full of prejudice from white students and teachers and night shifts working at his aunt’s restaurant, Emil refuses to follow in the footsteps of his labor organizer father, Francisco. He’s going to make it in this country no matter what or who he has to leave behind.

Denver, 1983. Chris is determined to prove that his overbearing father, Emil, can’t control him. However, when a missed assignment on “ancestral history” sends Chris off the football team and into the library, he discovers a desire to know more about Filipino history―even if his father dismisses his interest as unamerican and unimportant.

Philadelphia, 2020. Enzo struggles to keep his anxiety in check as a global pandemic breaks out and his abrasive grandfather moves in. While tensions are high between his dad and his lolo, Enzo’s daily walks with Lolo Emil have him wondering if maybe he can help bridge their decades-long rift.

Told in multiple perspectives, Everything We Never Had unfolds like a beautifully crafted nesting doll, where each Maghabol boy forges his own path amid heavy family and societal expectations, passing down his flaws, values, and virtues to the next generation, until it’s up to Enzo to see how he can braid all these strands and men together.

Publication Information:
Author: Randy Ribay
Publisher: Kokila (August 27, 2024)
Hardcover: 288 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0593461419
Grade level: 7-9

This is a complex, gorgeous, challenging book about three different generations who must forge their lives, identities, sexualities, and paths despite family and societal expectations. It's not a light read, but it's a read that will stay with you, and makes you think about the craft of writing. It also is a fascinating look at assimilation, the pandemic, and Filipino culture and history and its intersection and identity within the US.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. Everything We Never Had examines generational trauma in males in a Filipino family. This starts in California in 1930 and ends in Phildelphia in 2020 during the height of COVID. With each generation, the child tries to break away from the previous generation but also learns a little bit more about their family. An exceptional read.

I loved this one. It was so genuine and real. It’s a YA book, but doesn’t necessarily read like one, I definitely think young adults can and should read this one but I also highly recommend adults give this one a read as well! It covers family relationships, friendships and the pandemic (I don’t love pandemic stories but this one was good!) I loved the multiple POV and how they overlapped with one another. I enjoyed the history of Filipino people coming to America, I think it’s a story that not many people know. It was a really easy read for all of the heavy topics it did discuss. My heart feels heavy but happy after this one. 10/10 recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers Group for the advance electronic copy of this title.

This book connects the stories of four generations of Filipino American teenage boys. It is a timely book, with themes of immigration, but also themes of identity in general and father-son relationships.

There is an important conflict looked at from several perspectives--assimilation vs. celebrating one's own culture. It is interesting to see how this impacts the different generations, as well as the family relationships. Can a man whose life was built around assimilation ever understand why another generation cares so much about the past?

Adding an extra conflict, the present part of the story is set during early days of the pandemic, when families used to keeping distance suddenly found themselves together more often than was familiar or comfortable.

Really well constructed, weaving together the four generations seamlessly. I didn't always like all of the characters, but I did always believe them.

In Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay, four generations of Maghabol sons try to recover from the pain inside and around them. In their efforts, three sons, now fathers themselves, try to avoid reliving the past by passing down the things they always wanted, but too often at the cost of what matters most.

This book hit me hard. Over and over, the more I read, I felt my heart breaking for Francisco, Emil, Chris, and Enzo. I thought having four different perspectives was the perfect choice. The writing made it easy to slip into the character’s mind and emotions, which made it easy to understand and empathize with each son, even when I knew the harmful echoes their later actions would cause. Without that understanding and empathy, the generational and familial trauma could be misconstrued as flat and simple with a clear “bad guy,” but instead it does this theme justice by being more realistic, more frustrating, more complicated, and more human. This doesn’t mean that the mistakes and pain caused are excused, just that there’s an important acknowledgment of the many moments that led up to these decisions. Each perspective is fully fleshed out and multilayered, a mirror to how people are in real life.

Through everyone’s chapters, the history of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans in America is detailed, spanning almost a century from 1930 to 2020, and covering a range of topics including racism, pay disparity, rebellions and riots, cultural assimilation, and mental health. All the historical detail was weaved in seamlessly in the daily lives of the characters and never felt dry to read. I came away from this book learning a lot, and I really enjoyed that.

All the hurt and hardship was powerful and a challenge to read, but ultimately the story was even more powerful in its message of resilience, hope, and healing. There were always pockets of joy and love, even in the worst moments, and a hope so strong that it survives on to each son. In the most present timeline, Enzo’s timeline, three generations of Maghabol sons are still alive. Enzo and Emil’s nighttime routine of walking the dog together becomes the first crucial step in repairing relationships. The healing isn’t straightforward, and doesn’t have a clear solution, but the possibility is there, and that hope for a different future is what this book sees for this family and for anyone’s family.

Big thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers Group for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. 5/5 stars.

Everything We Never Had is about three generations of Filipino men are living in their family home in Philadelphia during the pandemic. Through family stories the novel tells the history of Filipino workers in America from the 1930s to the present. The story centers on hard labor in the California fields to the dreams of education. Author Randy Ribay includes a list of references and recommended readings.

Easily one of my favorite books of 2024! "Everything We Never Had" follows four generations of young men in a Filipino family. This novel sprawls from 1930 to 2020 and tackles masculinity, identity, father-son relationships, and the idea of the "American Dream."

The characters: Francisco, a young man who immigrates to Watsonville, CA from the Philippines in the 1930s and becomes embroiled in the farm workers' rights movement while struggling against racism, culture shock, and economic hardship; Emil, Francisco's son, in the 1960s, as he struggles with a complicated relationship with his father and dreams of pursuing an education despite racial prejudice; Chris, Emil's son (and Francisco's grandson), in the 1980s as he tries to learn more about Filipino heritage & history despite his father's pressure to assimilate; and finally, Enzo, Chris's son, in 2020 as a global pandemic hits and he tries to mend the rift between the men of his family.

In novels with multiple POVs, sometimes they end up lacking character development because there just isn't enough space for each character to have a meaningful arc. But in this one, I felt like the author did an excellent job giving each character an impactful story, and the individual POVs really built on one another. I really loved each of their stories.

This book really touches upon the complexity of the immigrant experience and what it means to be the child or grandchild of immigrants. It's about intergenerational trauma, and how assimilation creates ripple effects throughout a family that ultimately hurts everyone. This book really resonated with me as a reader of Filipino-American descent, but I think it will similarly resonate with any readers who have been impacted by intergenerational trauma.

Highly recommend!

Using four specific time periods in history with four characters all men from the same family, Ribay paints a portrait of coming of age that heavily focuses on Filipino identity from the relationships between father and son, about work, about family in general, about success- all of it.

Including a 2020 section with Enzo and his grandfather, it's particularly poignant as we're still living in the post-pandemic world knowing all of the ways it affected our relationships with family members in the way that The Lost Year did as well.

But moving back in time, there was the 80s, the 60s, and the 30s with a chunk of the book discussing labor history for Filipinos when the father was an organizer but made decisions that would come to affect the family.

Ribay's male-focused YA books provide a look at his life by pouring pieces of himself into the fictional characters he creates and the complexities of our lives. I love the generational aspect of how the book unfolds.

I appreciated the perspectives in this book. I liked that it was multi-generational and you could see how the relationships evolved.

A wonderful multi-generational story about a Filipino family trying to find their way to the American dream. The story jumps back and forth with generations. The older generation tells stories of leaving the Philippines, The newer generation tells stories of trying to understand the older generation and fit in the US.

Ribay has written a couple FABULOUS YA books and I will continue to recommend them to students and friends.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

sobbing because of how deeply this resonated with me, especially with the last couple of chapters. this was such a wonderful portrayal of the how different generations of filipinos/filipino american families view familial love, sacrifice, gratitude, and how the generational trauma has been passed down.

i saw so many of the men in my family - my father included - in this. the father/child relationships were perfectly depicted. there has always been a lack of communication with elder generations and a non-confrontational approach but in this book, chris and his son enzo work to fix that. it honestly was such a refreshing take to see and i'm proud that the younger generation has a book like this to help them learn to break those stigma in our culture.

randy does it again! the writing was superb. you can clearly tell the amount of research, effort, and pure love that went into this novel. fucking fantastic!

Everything We Never Had follows four generations of Filipino Americans and their familial relationships. The story focuses on father-son dynamics, as well as individual growth and becoming a man.

Ribay is a phenomenal storyteller, and the relationship aspect of this novel is top notch. I don't think this a book for a reluctant reader, and the generational narrative is a difficult sell for high schoolers. A well written novel, but not one that a lot of students will pick up.

Randy Ribay's latest young adult novel tells of four generations of Filipino men including:
a 1930s immigrant farm worker
a 1960s son of a farm labor organizer
a 1980s Colorado son of an over-bearing father
a 2020s son surviving the pandemic with his father and grandfather

Perspectives are intertwined and alternating, which was difficult for me to keep track of. Factual information about Filipino immigrants and Filipino-Americans was woven through the book, sometimes in ways that felt overly obvious (like when Enzo, the youngest of the men, happens to meet a Filipino classmate in the library who teaches him about Duterte.

More than anything, Everything We Never Had is a story of deeply damaged and traumatic relationships between fathers and sons.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay is a poignant exploration of grief, family, and the search for identity. The story follows a young boy grappling with the aftermath of a tragic loss, delving into the complexities of relationships and the impact of unspoken words. Ribay’s evocative writing beautifully captures the nuances of adolescence and the struggle to understand one’s place in the world. This heartfelt novel resonates deeply, making it a must-read for anyone seeking a touching narrative about love and healing.

This is a beautiful multi perspective, multi generational story. I love how each of the men experience different struggles, and how them coming together exposes those struggles and weaknesses. It’s poetic, relatable, and informative while being engaging. Ribay does an excellent job highlighting his Filipino heritage and brings to light issues and struggles that history books leave out.