# Everything We Never Had

**Author:** Randy Ribay
**Grade range:** Grades 7–12
**Age range:** 13–18
**First published:** 2024
**Genre:** Young Adult Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780593461419`
**ISBN-10:** `059346141X`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/everything-we-never-had
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Spanning four generations of Filipino American men — from Francisco, a farmworker in 1930s California, through his descendants in 1965, 1983, and 2020 — this novel traces inherited silence, masculinity, and fraught father-son relationships across nearly a century. From Randy Ribay, author of the National Book Award finalist Patron Saints of Nothing; a 2025-2026 Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award nominee (grades 7-12).

## Themes

- family
- identity
- immigration

## Where this book is assigned

### Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award

- **recommended** · 7th grade · Colorado — [source: Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award 2025-2026 Nominee List (Grades 7-12)](https://coloradobluespruceaward.partnersinliteracy.org/2025-2026-book-nominations-talks/)
- **recommended** · 8th grade · Colorado — [source: Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award 2025-2026 Nominee List (Grades 7-12)](https://coloradobluespruceaward.partnersinliteracy.org/2025-2026-book-nominations-talks/)
- **recommended** · 9th grade · Colorado — [source: Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award 2025-2026 Nominee List (Grades 7-12)](https://coloradobluespruceaward.partnersinliteracy.org/2025-2026-book-nominations-talks/)
- **recommended** · 10th grade · Colorado — [source: Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award 2025-2026 Nominee List (Grades 7-12)](https://coloradobluespruceaward.partnersinliteracy.org/2025-2026-book-nominations-talks/)
- **recommended** · 11th grade · Colorado — [source: Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award 2025-2026 Nominee List (Grades 7-12)](https://coloradobluespruceaward.partnersinliteracy.org/2025-2026-book-nominations-talks/)
- **recommended** · 12th grade · Colorado — [source: Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award 2025-2026 Nominee List (Grades 7-12)](https://coloradobluespruceaward.partnersinliteracy.org/2025-2026-book-nominations-talks/)

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_Generated from primary-source citations indexed on ReadingList.school. For the full HTML view with reading-list cross-references, see https://readinglist.school/book/everything-we-never-had._