This is our official Everything Everything book review!

Set up like a diary with drawings accentuating many entrances, Everything Everything is an interesting book right off the bat. Primarily young adult, it has been adapted into a movie directed by Stella Meghie, which starred Amandla Stenberg. I am definitely going to finish watching the movie, as I discontinued it against my will, determined to read the book first. So was it worth it?

Yes. But Everything Everything isn’t without its flaws.

In the Los Angeles suburbs, Madeline Whittier has lived in a bubble her entire life. A rare illness that makes her allergic to everything controls her life and the life of the few permitted to be around her. The walls are white, the doors are vacuumed sealed. The air filtered. Trapped inside her home since she was a small child, she has no one but her mother and nurse, Carla, to talk to. No friends to play with except for the ones in her beloved books. Books books and books. What can I say, she absolutely loves books! This one factor pulls you in as a reader, as while Madeline’s isolated and sterile life is so unusual, she is just like you and me with her appreciation of literature. Her life will also share a resemblance to anyone who’s ever felt different like they will never belong in the world.

The main figure of her life, her mom, is a doctor who has diagnosed her with SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency). It all started with her getting gravely ill as a baby just after an exotic stay in Hawaii.

But it all changes when seventeen-year-old Maddie gets new neighbors.

Cute and mischievous, Olly dresses in all black and draws her attention. But it seems like he is curious about her, too. Olly wants to discover the truth behind the girl in the window. With a bit of stubbornness and a lot of determination he convinces Maddy to become “friends.” Their relationship is adorable. Olly is like any curious little cat with Maddie being the string. Olly represents a world Maddie has never known and has no hopes of ever knowing. She doesn’t reveal to him right away why she can’t come out to meet him in person, but he knows she’s very sick. They make up for their lack of physical interaction though, by innocent emails and holding up signs to the window for each other. And so blooms the desire to become something more.

But Maddy knows she will never be able to touch Olly or do any of the things normal girls do. Will Olly really be her friend, considering he could get any girl he wants at school? Normal girls, too, who live in the real world. But it is their opposite-universe-relationship that keeps you interested, flipping the pages, wondering what will happen? Wait, could anything happen?

Madeline is sick after all. It also doesn’t help that lurking in the backdrop is her mother, doing whatever it takes to keep Maddie disinterested from boys and the outside world. She doesn’t want to see Maddie get her hopes up as she would be confined to the house anyway and visitors are a no-no.

I could sense something sinister about the mother right in the beginning. There were definitely some hair-raising moments, sometimes when I would get a pit in my stomach. I always knew something wasn’t quite so right and peachy about this protective matriarchal theme throughout. Was Maddie sick or was she a victim. Yet Yoon writes in a humble way that fools you of exactly how sensational the book would turn out. I thought the buildup was rather good, but here is the thing, the climax fell short. It just came out of nowhere for me, feeling forced and rushed. The last scene with Olly and Maddy didn’t feel like a conclusion at all. I guess I wanted to see what would happen after they found out the truth about Maddy. Still, I will never forget this book and found it remarkable overall. Four out of five coffee on a book stack!

The post “Everything Everything” Book Review appeared first on Busy Reading, Sorry.