Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon
From Goodreads
My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.
But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.
Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.
ISBN: 9780553496642
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Publication date: September 1st 2015
Pages: 307
Review
Poon is another new author to me so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Happily, however, I’m happy to say that I wasn’t disappointed. I was very impressed with Poon’s writing style and the fluidity of the story. She really managed to play to her readers’ emotions to great effect. I only got this book because I wanted to see the movie but I needed to read the book first.
Everything, Everything is in essence a romance story between Maddy (the sick girl around whom the book is based) and the boy across the road, Olly. The relationship between Maddy and Olly reminds me somewhat of the main characters in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (another brilliant book) in the way they interacted with each other. Olly was the one who tried to lighten the mood with his larrikin attitude and overall happy nature, which in spite of his own unhappy family life. Maddy on the other hand finds that Olly fascinates her and provides her with an insight, and a desire, to investigate the outdoors. One gets the impression that whilst Maddy appears to be resigned to her life lot (being kept indoors all the time) she does wonder what life outside is like. To try to satisfy this desire she reads lots of different books which she believes tell her everything she needs to know about the outside world and is therefore prepared for anything and everything.
When I read the book I wanted to know a couple of things: 1) What was the condition that kept her confined indoors all the time? and, 2) What meaning did the book’s title have? I’m pleased to say that I found the answer to both of these questions very early on which was great as I didn’t then get distracted by these questions for the remainder of the book. One particular feature of this book that I also felt added to the speed and flow of it was that the vast majority of the chapters were varying degrees of short. None of them were overly wordy which allowed the reader to feel as though they were feeling what Maddy felt and experiencing what she was experiencing.
This book surprised me by ending how it did. I thought I had figured out which way it was headed only to find out I was wrong. It was like reading a crime novel where you’d thought you’d figured out who the criminal was only to discover who were on the wrong track. With this is mind you will need to read the book to find out what I’m trying to allude to. Hopefully you’ll find it as interesting as I did.
Recommend for: 18+ years
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
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