Everything We Never Had

Gr 9 Up–National Book Award finalist Ribay juggles skillfully and with great heart a Filipino American family history as told by four generations of fathers and sons in alternating chapters. Readers first meet 16-year-old Enzo, the youngest, in Philadelphia at the start of the 2020 pandemic. “Murder hornets” is the euphemism he names the anxiety he’s in therapy for, which kicks in big time as he learns about the virus killing people. Since his grandfather’s retirement community poses a health risk, Emil, or Lolo, moves in with Enzo’s family, taking his bedroom. Reluctant though willing, Enzo shares with his father, Chris, the concept of “utang na loob”: taking care of Emil now is “a debt from within.” Emil’s father Francisco was an illiterate farmworker whose best friend was killed by white people trying to stop laborers from organizing in California in the 1920s; he later galvanized a union movement of Filipino, Mexican, and Black workers to win better wages and working conditions. Francisco sent his son to college, believing that the education beyond his reach was possible for Emil. Back in pandemic Philadelphia, 2020: When Lolo returns to his retirement home, Enzo inherits Thor, Lolo’s small black lab mix. From their evening walks with Thor, Enzo comes to appreciate how tough and uncompromising a parent Emil was to his father. But Chris can and does love his own son, and Enzo feels it. Four generations of men, once so guarded: the change over time is gradual but lasting.