Everything, Everything

by Nicola Yoon

Risk everything for love with this #1 New York Times bestseller from Nicola Yoon • "Gorgeous and lyrical"—The New York Times Book Review

What if you couldn’t touch anything in the outside world? Never breathe in the fresh air, feel the sun warm your face . . . or kiss the boy next door? In Everything, Everything, Maddy is a girl who’s literally allergic to the outside world, and Olly is the boy who moves in next door . . . and becomes the greatest risk she’s ever taken. 

"This extraordinary first novel about love so strong it might kill us is too good to feel like a debut. Tender, creative, beautifully written, and with a great twist, Everything, Everything is one of the best books I've read this year."—Jodi Picoult

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.

Everything, Everything will make you laugh, cry, and feel everything in between. It's an innovative, inspiring, and heartbreakingly romantic debut novel that unfolds via vignettes, diary entries, illustrations, and more. 

And don’t miss Nicola Yoon's bestselling novels The Sun Is Also A Star and Instructions for Dancing.

• ISBN10: 0553496646
• ISBN13: 9780553496642
• Publish Date: 1 September 2015 (first published 28 January 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Delacorte Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780553496642

Reviews

[Stephanie]

This was really lovely. A nice little pick-me-up. I think this has a "happier" ending than The Sun Is Also a Star, but both have a little bit of eye-roll-worthy impossible love story aspects that keep me from fully getting into it (maybe, I'm a cynic, who knows.) Either way, pls read.

[Pigpen.Reads]

Wow. Just wow! Fantastic read, I highly recommend.

[Bianca]

— Over-hyped book about a cheesy romance founded on insta-love. That plot twist at the end actually ruined it even more for me.

[Kim Deister]

Everything, Everything Everything, Everything is the debut novel from author Nicola Yoon. It is the story of a girl named Madeline who hasn’t left her house in over seventeen years. She has SCID, an autoimmune disease that is very rare and leaves her allergic to just about anything and everything. Her entire world is her mom and a nurse named Carla who is truly her only “in real life” friend. But then a family moves into the house next door and suddenly her world has expanded to include Olly. And that makes her want more than the walls of the home that has always been her prison.
 
There is nothing not to love about this book. Madeline’s character is tragic, but she is smart and has learned to make a life for herself. It may not be filled with the adventure she craves, but she has found a way to live with it. But even with this life-threatening disease, she is still a teenage girl with crushes and everything else that goes along with that. Olly’s character is just as tragic, with a life that is less than ideal, with problems of his own. Yet somehow, the two form a bond that is at times funny, at times heart-wrenching.
 
There is no question that this is an emotional read. Their individual stories can pull at your heart strings, make you alternately sad and mad. But there is also a lot of sweetness and a lot of smart humor. It is a romance, to be sure, but it is also a coming-of-age story with a lot of twists.
 
I loved the uniqueness of the book, from the diversity of the characters to the format of the book itself. Instead of the all-American white girl, Madeline is multiracial, part Japanese and part black. And the format was interesting, chapters interspersed with sketches, diary entries, medical logs, IMs, and emails. It was a little bit of extra narrative that was really a big part of bringing them both to life for the reader.
 
Overall:  I can’t deny that I ended the book in tears last night. And this morning? A very definite hangover. This is an amazing read that I recommend from the bottom of my heart!

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

4.25★ Audiobook⎮Everything, Everything was a quick and pretty enjoyable listen. It was similar to a few other titles in which a teenage protagonist battles some sort of illness. Luckily, that is a premise I cannot get enough of. The major distinguishing factor was the twist near the end. That’s what set it apart and that had a lot to do with the 4.25 star rating.

Without giving anything away, I’ll say that Everything, Everything took a look at two very different types of illnesses. Others have commented on being able to foresee the big twist, but it actually snuck up on me and I was very pleased. I love being blindsided by plot twists! I also enjoyed Madeline as a protagonist. She felt very alive and came off of the page exceedingly well. I do think that this title could have benefited from an extra hour or two of length. In the just under seven hours runtime, I wasn’t entirely able to form a solid connection with the story, even though all of the elements were there.

The writing was beautiful and I look forward to hearing more of Nicola Yoon’s work in the future. I appreciated the many literary references and the unique writing format, but I feel like this is a story that is best experienced in print. While listening to the audiobook, I could sense that I wasn’t getting the full effect of the author’s intent and that may have had something to do with my lack of overall enthusiasm while listening to Everything, Everything.

To summarize, Everything, Everything was enjoyable, but not especially noteworthy or memorable when compared with similar titles like The Fault in Our Stars or My Heart and Other Black Holes. Still, this made for an easy, yet thought-provoking listen.

Narration review: As mentioned above, some titles translate into audiobook format better than others and Everything, Everything is the perfect example of one that did not translate so well (in my opinion). However, Bahni Turpin and Robbie Daymond excellently narrated this title. Turpin has a distinct tone to her voice that immediately grabbed and kept my attention. I have no doubt that I will be able to quickly identify her voice instantly in future listening experiences. Her character voices were also easily separated thanks to wonderful characterization. Although less frequent, Daymond’s narration was even more enjoyable and I kept wishing for it’s reappearance in the story. Together, they provided a wonderful listening experience. ♣︎

[nitzan_schwarz]

I really loved this one. At first it was hard for me to get used to the format of the novel, and I wish the chapters would have been longer (it's so jarring to have chapters that are a page and a half long for me), and let me just tell you the makers of this kindle book kind of suck because all the special features were too tiny to read for the most parts so I missed some parts, but that's really my biggest complaint about this novel.

I loved Maddy, I loved Olly and how he was described (I could imagine him moving in my head, and let me tell you I enjoyed that lol), I loved this romance and how it developed - it wasn't insta love, it wasn't baseless. These two had a lot of reason to fall for each other, and I loved their relationship was relatively angst-less, considering Maddy illness.

I saw the twist coming from around 30% of the novel, and I was about 100% sure of it when her mom told her "you have no idea how much I love you". When people say that, it raises questions. but I can't say I minded that. At the same time, I wonder if that's a cope out? I'm all for this fantastic happy ending, but you wrote an entire book about this disability only to end it with "lol, jk!"

A more detailed review soon!

[Chelsea]

I found the whole idea of this book really interesting. I thought it would be interesting to see someone with such a huge disability live the life that is normal for them. I thought a lot of things going into this book but it was slightly disappointing. I still found myself interested in the book the whole way through, even though I had a few issues with it. It was a book that kept me hooked for sure plus I LOVED the audio book narrator(s) which rarely ever happens. So if you do decide to pick this one up, the audio book is worth it.

I did really like the main character Maddy. I thought she was really brave to have this sickness where she couldn't leave the house and she never got depressed or sad. I know if I don't leave the house for a whole day I can't sit still. I can only imagine how difficult it is for someone who can't ever leave.

I also really loved Olly. I loved how he was also in a tough situation and tried really hard to make the best of it. I loved how he made such a big impact on Maddy's life and was honestly just such a refreshing character. He felt really realistic to me, probably partially because he reminds me of a few people I know.

Despite all the things I'm going to mention next, I still really loved the beginning of this book and that's the only thing not pushing this rating down to 3 stars right now.

This book was on the way to getting 5 stars from me. There were things that I could look over because I was loving the direction the story was taking. After the "twist" at the end though, my rating dropped 2 full stars. It was disappointing to be honest. The rest of the book was pulling on my heart and I was really starting to love these characters. Something happens at the end that basically makes the whole book a big lie. It felt like a huge slap in the face or like the author took the plot and snapped it in half. It was almost like the author took the easy way out. Like "oh jk! This whole book wasn't what you thought it was!" which is good in some cases but not like this. I'm probably making it sound much worse than what it was but I had such high hopes for this book.

After being disappointed with how this book ended, I decided to not overlook the little things I was skipping throughout the rest of the book. You all know that this book is about a girl who is basically allergic to everything. She has to live in an air locked house and basically can't ever touch germs. That sounds fine and it was but after a while the illness felt badly researched. How come her mom could come and go (through the special air lock of course) but she could wear the same clothes the whole time? How could Maddy could essentially eat whatever she wanted? There were just little details like that that were either skimmed over or skipped completely. It could have been so much better.

Also the romance, pretty darn close to insta love. Just a warning.

I would only recommend this book to people who actually really enjoy insta-love and cheesy romance. If you can't skip over the lack of realistic details in books then probably don't read this one.

This book had a lot of potential and ended up a big disappointment. I don't know if I would even recommend this to anyone.

[Joséphine]

June 17, 2016

Initial thoughts: Though I predicted the twist, I feel cheated. As a reader, I find books like these insulting. To claim that the protagonist has Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) only to introduce this twist: actually she's not ill; her mother fabricated it and treated her as though she had SCID. She's actually healthy — oh, happy ending! That made me so, so angry. I despised We Were Liars for similar reasons. These kinds of tropes shouldn't be plot devices. The romanticisation of illnesses and the disregard for their bearing is aggravating, as is cheesy romance that has little basis for its developments.

Dec 22, 2016 — Note: Added information in spoiler tags.

[Sam@WLABB]

For her entire life, Madeline lived within the confines of her home, as she was allergic to the world. She was, however, content with her life. She had her books, her nurse (Carla), her mom, and her tutors. She interacted with others through the internet, and did not want for more, until HE moved in next door.

For the first time in a long time, I want more than I have.

Olly was a handsome, athletic boy who wore all black, and took an interest in Madeline. I loved Olly from the start. This boy, who had the weight of the world on his shoulders. His priority was protecting his mom and sister, and giving in to his father's demands, in an attempt to keep the peace. He was funny and sweet and was able to see past Madeline's illness. He is slightly damaged, but still living and hoping and dreaming. The IMs and emails between Olly and Madeline were fantastic. I loved the back and forth, give and take. There is not doubt, that the love story took root in those IMs.

I was happy before I met him. But I’m alive now, and those are not the same thing.

I have to speak about Nicola Yoon and her writing. I got to attend several panels and signings of Nicola Yoon's, and she was just so lovely. I was so struck by her graciousness and gratitude. She was completely awed by the long line of people waiting to meet her at BEA. Those traits are definitely apparent in writing, and the writing is so beautiful. I could seriously quote this book forever. She crafted her characters with such warmth and honesty, but also allowed them to be angsty when it was appropriate. Her writing evoked many an emotional response for me. I teared up quite a few times, ok, I actually cried too, but I also laughed, and smiled. I listened to the audiobook, but I actually had an ARC from last year on my shelf. I recommend the book to my more visual people, as Yoon included some great illustrations, as well as layouts, which contribute to the impact of the words.

Spoiler alert: Love is worth everything. Everything.

My heart broke in half for Madeline's mom. She lost her husband and son in a car accident, and was left with a sickly infant. Her family was her whole world, and she lost them. As a doctor, she decided Madeline's care would be her own responsibility, thus, she would protect her.

For her it was the Big Bang in reverse—everything that became a nothing.

This is a beautiful story of so many things: love, friendship, family, forgiveness, gratitude. I was left warm and fuzzy and happy.

You're not living if you're not regretting.

[catiebug]

I completely under the hype surrounding this book. I was in love with it after just the first page!