from reading the blurb it would be an easy mistake to think this a mystery/thriller, yet this book focuses less on what happened to Lydia and more on why. It reaches back into the family dynamics and their own pasts - and how the pain in their lives reflected on Lydia's. Even still, the book is a thriller in a certain way, with a drip-feed of information, leaving the reader think they know the whole truth - when really they know nothing, speaking to our own flawed way of communication with our loved ones.
Also, Ng's style is poetic and dreamlike, and so easily read.