Books that give multiple character's perspectives, telling bits and pieces of their lives that fit into a larger whole, almost always draw me in.

The ways that we impact each other are myriad. And each person is driven by events that impact their lives--both large and small. We aren't easily summed up. We keep secrets. We often aren't exactly as we seem. And we are notoriously full of surprises, even the most seemingly mundane of us.

Also: racism is real. And strong. Insidious. And I'm grateful for authors that take great pains to explore the various ways racism plays out for their characters. How it shapes their actions, their beliefs. How they fight it or accept it.

The novel is set in a Vietnamese enclave outside of Sydney. It was instructive to be dropped into that world, as a reader, where white people only existed on the periphery (as blatant racists or "good" white people who started out with a savior complex that they had to reckon with).

As an American kid growing up in the 1980s, I knew about Vietnam, knew kids with fathers who hadn't come home from the war, understood that people's beliefs about that war in particular caused a tear in the fabric of American society.

But, of course, no one showed me the war from the side of the Vietnamese. I never considered what Vietnamese refugees lost when they fled their country. In fact, embarrassingly, I'd never considered Vietnamese refugees at all.

All That's Left Unsaid is a powerful examination of family ties and loyalty, the bonds of friendship, the ravages of racism, and the loss of one's country. And all the stories weave together to piece together what actually happened the night Denny Tran was murdered.