Teodora’s Book Reviews: “Everything, Everything” by Nicola Yoon (Penguin Random House Children’s Books, London, 2015)

I didn’t know anything about Nicola Yoon’s debut novel called “Everything, Everything” until I came across the movie trailer. The plot seemed to be similar with the ones from “The Fault in our Stars” by John Green and “Me Before You” by Jojo Moyes. I could even picture the whole story: a girl with an unusual disease falls in love, chooses to take a major risk, learns a valuable life lesson and finally, she is most likely to die. Although the plot sounded basic, I still wanted to read the book and see if I predicted everything, everything correctly.

Madeline Whittier, the protagonist of the story, has SCID, which stands for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (or more commonly known as “bubble baby disease”). She is basically allergic to the whole world full of viruses, bacteria and all sorts of airborne particles. I honestly haven’t heard of this disease before and I instantly felt sorry for Maddy, although she is not being too dramatic about her situation. She sparks the reader’s interest on the first page of the book, and then she smoothly goes on with other random facts about her life:

“In my white room, against my white walls, on my glistening white bookshelves, book spines provide the only color. The books are all brand-new hardcovers – no germy secondhand softcovers for me. They come to me from Outside, decontaminated and vacuum-sealed in plastic wrap.” (page 1)

I noticed straightaway the capital O from Outside and realized that Maddy doesn’t have contact with anyone, besides her mother and her nurse called Carla. Living in a house for 17 years, without ever having the possibility to step out, definitely sounds as a complete torture, but Maddy surely knows how to keep herself busy. She either spends time with Pauline, her mom, or reads books (“I’ve read many more books than you. It doesn’t matter how many you’ve read. I’ve read more. Believe me. I’ve had the time.”). We could say that Maddy has been traveling to a lot of worlds while sitting in one place.

Our heroine confesses that she sometimes rereads some of her favorite books, starting with the last chapter and going all the way to the beginning. It’s quite exciting to observe the characters’ evolution going backwards, “from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt”. If Maddy had a book about her life, it would be the same all over again, therefore she compares her entire existence with a palindrome. Of course, everything changes when a new family moves in next door. Olly Bright, Maddy’s first crush, could be seen as the plot twist in the girl’s story.

It doesn’t last long until the two teenagers notice each other. They begin talking through emails and IM (instant messaging) and wish to meet in person some day. As soon as Carla brings the boy to the Whittier’s (after a whole process of decontamination), Maddy realizes that falling in love with Olly will most certainly be a disaster. The temptation to be closer to him and talk for ages is undeniable and hard to ignore. Maddy comes to the conclusion that, despite being alive, she’s not truly living her life, so she’s ready to take a huge risk and accomplish her biggest goal: go out and discover the world. She packs the essentials and flies to Hawaii with Olly, leaving her mom worried sick. What changes Maddy’s strongest desire into a heroic act are stepping out of her house and also being aware of the fact that she might die at some point. However, I do feel that the plot is kind of rushed up from the moment Maddy and Olly leave their families behind. It’s true, these two characters had met and talked a lot, but I still didn’t have the feeling that they knew each other perfectly well. Maddy falls for the first boy she sees, without keeping her options open (although who knows what other boys could have gradually come into her life). I wanted to love their growing relationship, but something stopped me from doing that. At least some of their shared moments occasionally brought a smile on my face.

So did I predict everything correctly? Almost. I was right about the parts with falling in love, risking your entire life and learning the difference between being alive and living. The rest of the story brings up a whole change in perspective, which I didn’t see coming (and funnily enough, I can usually guess a possible plot twist while reading a book). The unexpected strike has a strong impact on the mother-daughter bond, and maybe even on the readers’ perspective upon some specific people from the story.

Despite the fact that the characters’ evolution seemed to pass by too quickly, I still enjoyed Maddy’s short book reviews (which related to what was going on in her life), her own version of a dictionary, the lovable references to “The Little Prince” (whenever Maddy read it once again, it always changed its meaning) and the IM conversations between the two teenagers (it felt as if I was taking a sneak peek at Maddy’s phone and reading her messages – the drawings were clearly authentic). I also couldn’t help but notice that Olly might hide an entire world inside of him. It often seemed as Maddy didn’t know which world to discover first (the outside one or Olly’s one, starting with his ocean blue eyes):

“We turn a corner and suddenly the ocean is just there, running alongside the road to the left of us. It can’t be more than thirty feet away.
The vast endlessness of it is shocking. It falls off the end of the world. (…)
I look back at Olly’s ocean eyes and I’m drowning, surrounded on all sides by water. There’s so much to see that it’s hard to know what to pay attention to.” (page 195)

Although Maddy and Olly’s relationship is no match for the love between Hazel Grace and Gus (from “The Fault in our Stars”), their path in life will intrigue the readers, without a doubt. The book provides an easy reading time, with a lot of life lessons, which can be interpreted in many ways, depending on how you regard love and taking risks. My adventurous side is all for living our life to its fullest and spontaneously trying exciting activities. However, my vigilant side agrees with the idea of being careful with our decisions and the consequences they might have on ourselves and other people we care about.

For now, I can only wait to see the movie as well. Perhaps it will depict the teenage love connection in a more realistic way and give me a tingly sense of excitement.