Oh my word. Where to start.
I started Everything Everything yesterday morning and just couldn't put it down. It was like my Kindle was superglued to my hand. This book reeled me in and just didn’t let me go.
Everything Everything tells the story of Madeleine, an eighteen year old girl with SCID (severe combined immune deficiency). Madeleine is allergic to the outside world and lives in a sealed environment with her mum and her nurse. She lives her life in her little bubble, taking classes online and staying indoors at all costs and she accepts her condition, never considering going outside until a new family move in next door and she meets Olly.
I loved Madeleine. She was as mentally strong as she was physically compromised and managed to pack so much into such a sheltered life. One of the (many) parts that nearly had me in tears was where she spent her eighteenth birthday eating vanilla cake and being beaten at Scrabble by her mum. And Olly was so adorable and cared so much about Madeleine even though he had his own problems.
The plot kept me guessing throughout. At times I thought I could see where it was going, but then it surprised me and took a different direction altogether and was touching, funny, sweet and so, so sad.
I think there will be inevitable comparisons with The Fault In Our Stars and while there are similarities (girl lives constrained life due to medical condition before meeting boy and falling in love). I don’t want to add any spoilers to my review, but in fact the two books are actually pretty different.
Nicola Yoon has created such a wonderful book with Everything Everything; I think she’ll be one to watch out for in the future.
9.5/10