Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon

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.


Rating: 2,5/5 Stars

That ending ruined… everything, everything.

This was a very promising novel for the first 200 pages or so, until the thing at the end happens that makes the entire novel, its message and plot, be completely pointless.

It’s not very often that I read books in the contemporary genre mostly because, although I do enjoy reading about characters like Maddy who go through all kinds of moments (both good and bad), most of the contemporary novels I have read have failed in making me feel something.

It happened with All The Bright Places and The Fault In Our Stars, they had wonderful concepts that drew me in, but with the execution I felt something lacking. I couldn’t connect with the characters or what they were going through, I felt myself get bored more often than not and wanting the books to end rather than enjoy the read. I saw what was happening and how much it sucked, but there was something that just kept me from being invested in the characters. I always say the same thing; I’m a very character-oriented person, and in books like these they ARE the story. If I can’t feel what they are going through, it’s pretty much done for me.

But that was not the case with Everything Everything.

Sure, Maddy wasn’t perfect. Her life wasn’t perfect either, when you have a severe form of Combined Immunodeficiency or “bubble baby disease” you are unable to be outside. Anything from plants, to chemicals in any regular thing can make you sick and almost kill you, so Maddy stays inside and lives her life from her little bubble away from the world.

Her character was interesting, Maddy sometimes she was hardly likeable, but that made her real and I could understand her. She has spent her entire life inside her house, only interacting with her mother and nurse, never being able to leave the house, smell fresh air, eat food that’s not plain! Basically, everything could kill her. But then she meets her new neighbor, Olly, and she begins to see what she’s missing.

I loved seeing this contrast. The novel starts with Maddy being happy with her life, studying with her online teachers, having movie nights with her mom and doing everything inside her room. But then when she meets Ollie she can’t deny the fact that there’s a life everybody is living but her.

It was interesting seeing this disease and the world from her perspective because she wasn’t someone who moaned and complained about the carts she had been dealt with. She lived her life day by day doing all sort of things to entertain herself. The problem was when she began to see the world through Ollie’s eyes, she saw the possibilities and everything she had been working hard to ignore. What was the point of dreaming about those things when it was impossible? But by making friends with him, she can’t escape reality no longer and she knows that by being trapped inside her house unable to connect with anybody or anything she’s not living, but existing. And that’s not the same thing.

I found the romance to be cute at first, but it quickly overruled every other aspect of the book. Take the mother-daughter relationship, for instant. At the beginning I loved seeing how Maddy’s relationship with her mother was. Their friendship was sweet and heartwarming, something you don’t get to see quite often in YA. However, as Ollie entered her life, the narration completely steered away from family, friends and any other aspect of Maddy’s life that didn’t involve him.

Romance is important in a teenager’s life, I get that, but I still wish the story had focused more on Maddy’s life and its different aspects rather than it being all about the relationship between her and Ollie.

I wish we could have known more of how she lived her life, too. At the beginning Maddy describes how she spends her days, what she likes and dislikes, her hobbies and studies. She even mentions having Tumblr friends whom she talks with “endlessly” yet they were just that, a mention and they never appeared again. Same with the other aspects of her life, they were introduced but since the moment Ollie steps into the scene Everything, everything (see what I did there??? God I suck at this) revolves around him.

Nevertheless, the romance was cute enough to keep me interested, at least until the 200 page mark. That’s when things begin to go down.

My major problem with this is the ending. The author had a wonderful story here, I could see myself giving it four stars because, albeit not perfect and too focused on romance, the story had promise. It made me be engaged with the story. Made me feel Maddy and sympathize with her. But then the ending comes around and it just… everything went out the window. It was as if the last 200 pages had never happened and the resolution was a cheap ending.

Usually, when I really like a book, if the ending sucks yeah, it’s bad but I loved the rest! Here the ending ruined the entire book for me, because it went against everything it had built.

Everything Everything is a promising debut by author Nicola Yoon, albeit the ending was unfitting for the story, the narration was engaging and it made of it a fast read.