ARC Review: Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon

Title: Everything, Everything
Author: Nicola Yoon
Pub Date: September 1st, 2015
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Page Count: 307

This innovative, heartfelt debut novel tells the story of a girl who’s literally allergic to the outside world. When a new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything she’s ever known. The narrative unfolds via vignettes, diary entries, texts, charts, lists, illustrations, and more.

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.

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This book blew me away. There are logic aspects that are annoying to other readers in terms of the medical aspect of this book but it's a rare moment when I don't care about faults and let myself enjoy the book. This book gave me those feelings. - Nova @ Out of Time

When I first heard about Everything, Everything, I knew I had to have it. There's something intensely interesting about the idea. Sometimes, I'll read a book summary and instantly request. This is what happened with Everything, Everything.

Usually, I don't start with warnings, but I feel the need to. Everything, Everything is not based off medical info. I know, it's weird! There's a lot of medical involved in the story - or there should be, but it's pretty blank. We're told so little so for me, I just chose to go with the flow to increase my enjoyment. I know some readers complained about it but for me, I always saw it as something the main character, Maddy needed to overcome to increase her development.

In a way, it's reminiscent to a Rapunzel retelling in many ways. I don't want to spoil, so I won't elaborate too much. Maddy hasn't seen the outside world because of her illness and then she meets a boy.

Boom.

A lot of this book has pictures and IM conversations between Olly and Maddy. I know IM conversations are usually kind of dry because there's barely any written descriptions of feelings and such but this book made me freak out. Their conversations were just so freaking cute. And that's probably what I enjoyed the most about this book: it was so cute.
Most of the time, I'll be like "aw!" towards a scene but for this book, I had to put the book down a LOT because of my flails. I flailed, guys. FLAILED.

There's also a plot twist down the road but unfortunately, I saw it coming. The signs were all there and it made a lot of sense once it was revealed. Plus, I saw the same kind of thing happen on an episode of the show, Heroes. However, I will say that the plot was pretty well executed. I never felt a rush or drag in the plot and because it has so much to do with Maddy and her self discovery, I really enjoyed getting into the girl's head.

I would compare this book to the show, Unbreakable [even though I don't really like it.] It has a few similarities to that. However, I wouldn't compare it to The Fault in Our Stars, partly because I didn't really enjoy TFioS and partly because there's something a lot more juvenile about Everything, Everything. In TFioS, I felt like the characters were a little overdone where it became pretentious.

This book was filled with feels! It felt a little middle grade to me in certain areas, but I still intensely enjoyed it because of all the cute, squealing feels I got!

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Nicola Yoon grew up in Jamaica (the island) and Brooklyn (part of Long Island). She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA with her husband and daughter, both of whom she loves beyond all reason. Everything, Everything is her first novel.