Powerful first novel Everything, Everything

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Maddy Whittier lives in a bubble. She has not left her house since she was a baby. One month after her father and brother were killed in a crash, she was diagnosed with SCID, Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. SCID is a condition that is a dangerous inability of the immune system to ward off infection of any kind. Luckily for Maddie, her mother is a doctor and has created an environment that is totally clean and free of bacteria, but Maddy's life depends on staying inside this "bubble" for the rest of her life.

Maddy has resigned herself to this life and is content. Her mother does all she can to keep Maddy entertained and to provide her with an excellent online education. Only very rarely is anyone admitted to the house and only after an hour of decontamination.

Then, the empty house next door is purchased by a family with two teens. Maddy begins an IM relationship with Olly (Oliver) and they begin to fall in love.

Now, Maddy becomes seriously disenchanted with her life and frustrated with her illness. She begins to yearn for a life in the real world; to see, and touch, and experience. Her mother and Carla, the nurse that cares for her each day while her mother works, begin to see her withdrawing and changing. Carla has guessed the reason, but Maddy does not want her mother to know, and Carla keeps her secret.

But, what can Maddy and Olly do? There is no future to their relationship due to Maddy's illness. Olly has additional problems with an abusive father who is becoming more and more dangerous for he, his mother and his sister. Carla allows a few visits from the decontaminated Olly, but this is still no life for the young couple.

Maddy becomes increasingly frustrated and decides to risk it all. But, how long will she have? And, what about Olly's continuing attempts to convince his mother to leave his abusive father? In addition, what is the secret Maddy's mother is keeping from her?

Although my description may sound a bit melodramatic, Everything, Everything is filled with the joy of life. Maddy's yearnings help us to see the world from her perspective and to see the importance of the small, every day occurrences of our lives. Maddy is courageous in her attempt to grab life with both hands. Her growing love for Olly makes her world intolerable. She wants so much more.

The relationships in Everything, Everything are very vivid and engrossing. Maddy is a strong female figure and broadly educated girl. Since the majority of the story happens in and around Maddy's home, we see a large emphasis on the characters in her world, which mainly consist of Maddy's mother, her nurse, Clara, and Olly. The sense of Maddy's caged feeling grows along with Maddy's frustration and her mother's concern that Maddy not be hurt and become discontent. But Maddy makes the distinction between being alive and living. How much of life are we willing to give up in order to just stay alive?

One very important factor in Everything, Everything is the fact that Maddy is racially mixed, half Japanese and half African-American, but this has very little impact on the story line itself. We bemoan the lack of diversity in teen writing, and this is an opportunity for us to fall in love with a strong character that is just incidentally racially mixed. More of this, please!

I read an advance copy I received from Netgalley that contained a few errors that were hopefully caught in the final copy. But this is a very strong story with highly sympathetic characters that can appeal to teens and adults equally. Highly recommended and I would like to see it added to a lot of library teen collections for the diversity aspect alone.



View all my reviews