Monday 4 January 2016

Everything, Everything - Review

 

Book Review:
Title: Everything, Everything
Author: Nicola Yoon
Publisher:Corgi Children's

“Just because you can’t experience everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experience anything.”


Everything, Everything follows a girl called Maddy who is essentially allergic to the whole world. She has a really rare disease which can cause the littlest of things like a piece of dust to kill her. Due to this, she has to stay inside her sterile house, which is air locked, 24/7. She hasn't left her house since she was a young girl and hasn't ever really been tempted to leave until a boy called Olly and his family move next door.

This book was such a quick read. I picked it up at about 3pm and then by 6/7pm, I was finished. I didn't realise that I had been reading non-stop for 3/4 hours. Time literally just flew past. From the very first page I was hooked and I wanted to know more. More about Maddy's rare disease. More about her new friendship with Olly. More about everything.

Her relationship with Olly is what really made this book for me. Their relationship did seem to move quite fast but I didn't really care because I thought they were extremely cute together. I loved their late night conversations and how they were constantly joking and flirting with each other.
(M):What colour are your eyes?
(O): blue 
(M): Be more specific please
(O): Jesus. girls. ocean blue
(M): Atlantic or Pacific
(O): atlantic. What colour are yours?
(M): Chocolate brown.
(O): More specific please
(M): 75% cacao butter, dark chocolate brown
(O): hehe. nice”
How can you not smile at that?

Another thing I loved about this book was the diversity of it. Our main protagonist is Afro-Asian, which I was extremely happy to see. It's 2016, I think it's time we start seeing more diversity in our characters whether it be race, weight or even disability. So I praise Nicola Yoon for not sticking to the norm and branching out.

I'm not going to lie, it was hard to wrap my head around some things, especially near the end. I'm not going elaborate and say what those things were because I don't want to spoil anyone, but if you've read the book you'll probably know what I'm talking about. I also would have liked about 20 more pages at the end with Olly, I feel like it would have tied everything up more nicely for me. But, other than that, I found myself really enjoying this book and really connecting with Maddy and Olly.

Three words to sum up; Funny, Adorable, Heartfelt

4 Stars
Goodreads