Madeline is allergic to the world. She never leaves her sanitized house or sees anyone besides her mom and longtime nurse Carla. She reads a lot, her books arriving in vacuum sealed packaging, and does her schooling online.
Used to this life, Madeline has accepted it and enjoys it. She looks forward to her movie nights with her mom and doesn’t think about how she hasn’t met anyone new in seventeen years.
Then one day a moving truck arrives next door. A boy about her age, named Olly and dressed all in black, notices her looking from her window. Their eyes meet and now she can think of hardly anything else.
When they start emailing and IMing, Maddie becomes sure of one thing – things are changing.
And it’s certainly going to be a disaster…
Everything, Everything is a beautifully constructed story.
When we first meet Maddie, she is fully uncomplaining of her life – loving her books, her mom and Carla. She knows she can’t have more and she’s okay with that. Yet once a burgeoning crush begins, she cannot deny the sudden desire for more.
With a great level of pacing, Maddie slowly becomes more and more involved with Olly until she realizes that never meeting anyone, touching anyone or going anywhere is what she’s had to do to survive – but perhaps survival is not the only thing that matters.
Maybe living is what matters.
And for the first time she is questioning if what she is doing is truly living.
Thus begins a rather taut story of first love and coming-of-age, as the reader both want Madeline to have more but also fears for what that will do to her.
This is a swift, absorbing read that will tug at the heartstrings and also brings about a feeling of inspiration. We should never take for granted what we have – and remember that it may be preferable to live than to just survive.
Compelling. Elegant. Memorable.
*Keep an eye open for your chance to read Everything, Everything when it is released in September 2015!
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