Once Upon a Bibliophile

BOOK- Everything, Everything

AUTHOR- Nicola Yoon

GENRE- contemporary, romance

RATING – 4.5/5

I don’t really read contemporary romance. I’m more of a romantic fantasy kinda girl to be honest.

But I used to.

So when I saw Everything, Everything shoved onto an overcrowded shelf in a second hand bookstore in Sedbeurgh, I knew that I had to pick it up again.

I had read Everything, Everything before, but it felt like so long ago – a different era, a different obsession, a different me- that it felt like I was opening it for the first time.

And honestly, I’d forgotten how good it was.

PLOT

Live life in a bubble? Or risk everything for love?

Maddy is allergic to the world. She hasn’t left her house in seventeen years.

Olly is the boy next door. He’s determined to find a way to reach her.

This blurb sums up the entire novel very well- short and sweet, but with a lot of punch.

To add a little more detail, Madeline has SCID- Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, which means she hasn’t left the house for most of her life. She can’t remember ever being Outside. But when a boy called Olly moves in next door, her carefully controlled life is thrown into chaos.

Olly shows her all the things she could be, all the places she could go- if only she left her house. And so Maddy has to face a decision: stay alive, or live.

The plot of Everything, Everything was a perfect combination of romance and that kind of philosophical depth I associate with a lot of contemporary novels. The consequence of this perfect balance was, simply, that I enjoyed reading it. One reason I don’t often read contemporary books is because it’s all too easy for them to be filled with these great philosophical ideas about the meaning of life (spoiler alert: it’s 42), and the story gets lost in all that. I understand that many people who enjoy these sort of books because of that depth-the questions answered, the ideas challenged- but personally, I want a story too.

Everything, Everything found a way to do both. And, what’s more, Nicola managed to weave the two elements together almost seamlessly. The ideas explored were not simply the protagonist’s random musings but instead things that felt natural, things that were a direct consequence of what was actually happening in Maddy’s life.

I lovedlovedloved watching Maddy and Olly’s relationship develop, even though it was a bit predictable. I will admit, I did go into the book knowing that the two were going to have some kind of romantic relationship.

However, this took nothing away from how genuinely sweet their whole relationship is. I’ve read plenty of ‘I’d die for you’ couples in my time, but none felt as real as this.

I really cared for Olly and Maddy. I really did. It wasn’t the most original relationship in the world- it relied quite heavily on the neighbours-to-lovers trope, but I liked it. I liked how they never really met in person for ages, I liked how, at first, they had to stay apart. I just liked it.

I don’t really know how to describe it.

Which might make this post a bit hard to write.

You know when you have a favorite food you’ve liked since childhood, and you don’t know exactly what you like about it? It’s just a constant in your life and you can’t imagine living without it?

(This analogy is making me hungry. )

I guess it’s kind of like that with me and these romances. If you read my review of Sherwood by Meagan Spooner you’ll know that I sometimes get attached to characters for no apparent reason. This generally tends to lead to many ‘you’re in love with so-and-so’ jokes from my friends (I love you guys 🙂 ) but I honestly don’t know what draws me to them.

I felt a little like this when reading Everything, Everything. When I opened to the first page, something just clicked between me and Maddy, or maybe me and the author. I could understand Maddy, even if I couldn’t relate to her, and, for a couple of hundred pages, I felt like I knew her. Really knew her. Better than I know myself

I can’t not respect an author who can make me feel that way.

Yes, it was a tropey, boy-next door kinda plot that stuck to the well trodden paths of contemporary, sick-lit romance. But something about Maddy’s story just grabbed onto my heart and held on tight.

However, what really made this book stand out was the writing.

Or, rather, the not-writing.

Nicola Yoon’s prose is good. It’s compelling. She really knows the importance of a good chapter break.

But there’s nothing special about it.

What was special about Everything, Everything was how the author communicated to the reader without using words. The screen shot of a single email. A string of IMs. A drawing.

I thought this was a really interesting way to tell the story and it definitely worked a lot better in this context than prose would have done. It resulted in a much shorter book, as well as one that was easier to read.

For someone who is used to reading quite long, prose centered books, reading Everything, Everything felt like going on holiday. It was a really easy, laid back read. There wasn’t anything I struggled to get my head around, and I finished it a lot quicker than my usual reading speed.

Now, this isn’t a bad thing. I know it’s a popular belief amongst non-readers that reading long, ‘hard’ books is some kind of great achievement, one that makes you ‘clever’. I believed this too, when I was young, but now I know that value should come from quality, not quantity. And Nicola Yoon really excelled in quality.

Everything, Everything is a short book. But that doesn’t mean it’s one that shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Everything, Everything is a nice, easy read. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t depth to what the author is telling us.

In a time where many young adults and teenagers just won’t have the attention span or motivation to read pages of dense prose, I think Nicola made a really smart move in writing Everything, Everything this way. Above all else, it made the novel feel much more accessible, as it a) communicated in ways that teenagers could relate to- like messaging apps, Email conversations and art, and b) didn’t waste words on things that didn’t have an effect. Every word had won it’s place.

CHARACTERS

There wasn’t actaually many characters in Everything, Everything. Excluding unimportant side characters, there was really only just Maddy, Olly, Maddy’s mum and, at the beginning, Maddy’s nurse.

I feel like, in a romance, too many people ruins it. I have read a lot of book (albeit mostly fantasy) that just have too many characters. I know I say a lot that side characters bring meaning to a story, but when it gets to the point of forgetting who they even are, it just becomes ridiculous. Especially in romance, when, in all honesty, you only really need two characters. I was glad that there weren’t many characters in Everything, Everything.

MADDY

Just like I believe that this world needs more of Meagan Spooner’s Will Scarlets in it (*rushes to her bookcase to check whether his name has two Ts or not* … It’s ok! I spelt his name right! CRISIS AVERTED!), I also think that this world needs more Madeline Whittiers in it . (*rushes to her bookcase to check whether she spelt her name right* … and a crisis is averted for the second time in as many minutes)

Maddy is such an inspiring character. She’s really resilient, and wise for her age and I genuinely think that she’s just an amazing person. If I were in Maddy’s shoes, I’m pretty confident that I wouldn’t be able to last very long shut up at home, let alone navigate all the problems and difficult feelings in such a cool, level headed way as Maddy does in Everything, Everything.

However-though this does nothing to take away from what a strong character Maddy is- this kind of character is one you expect to see in this kind of sick-lit book. Wise and resilient. A role model to us all.

But Nicola did an amazing job in making sure that Maddy was not only a strong, wise and resilient character, but also an interesting one.

Maddy is an interesting person. And I don’t mean that as an insult. I really enjoyed getting to know Maddy, for two reasons. The first was that she reminded me a bit of myself- she loves to read, she’s a blogger, she has a slightly corny sense of humor and, from what I can tell, likes to hoard bad jokes. Which, I must admit, is a hobby of mine that my family and friends find irritating, to say the least. The second reason is that, despite me and her sharing a few similarities, her personality was quite different to my own, and I felt intrigued by this. I really liked seeing what was going on inside her head, how she reacted to things. Reading Everything, Everything was a chance to get to know a new character without thinking ‘oh yeah I totally would have done the same thing’ every time she made a decision.

As I said earlier, I think something just clicked between me and Maddy while reading Everything, Everything. I understood something fundamental about her, which is quite a change from what usually happens when I form a connection with a character.

For those interested, what usually happens when I form a connection goes something like ‘omigod that was so funny. Wait. You’re telling me that wasn’t supposed to be funny? Darling, that was the best bit of the entire book. This unimportant side character just made my day. No, there is no logic to this. *upon finishing the book, proceeds to re-read every possible scene that this character is in*

You’re welcome for that un-asked-for insight into my brain, by the way.

Anyway.

As I was saying before that rude interruption (thanks for being so illogical, brain), I formed a connection with Maddy that held strong throughout the entire book.

OLLY

Meh.

That is my reaction to Olly.

Olly is meh.

I genuinely just Googled the word ‘meh’ to see if it was in the dictionary and it is.

FILM ADAPTATION

I know! I know! I’m sorry! I know it’s not part of the book but I just had to get it in here somewhere. I’ll be quick, I promise, and then we can go back to talking about books again.

To answer the question, ‘shall I watch the film?’, I thought that the movie adaptation was quite good.

Of course, the films never live up to the books, but Stella Meghie’s Everything, Everything was pretty faithful to the books. I mean, the screenwriter had obviously read the book, so, though there were some things that were different, at least it wasn’t in the league of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.

And that should count for something.

I should say though, because you can’t really use drawings and IMs in a film to communicate, it did feel a lot more…generic than the book. Watching it, I was reminded of a lot of tv romances, and if I hadn’t read the book, I certainly would have dismissed it as nothing more than another romance film.

CONCLUSION

Everything, Everything might seem like just another sick-lit romance, but this book is a sparkling gem of a read. If you have a spare weekend, pick it up. You won’t regret it.