Author: Nicola Yoon
# of Pages: 306 (hardback)
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: 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.
Review: Maybe instead of saying she's allergic to the work, Yoon could have used this book as an opportunity to raise awareness of SCID.
I was beginning to think the disease wasn't even real; I thought the disease was a fictional story-telling device to tell a modern Rapunzel-esque story. However, this disease really does exist, even though it is only mentioned in the book by name a couple of times at most.
The plot is predictable; it's your average YA romance novel. However, this work of Yoon's is much better than The Sun Is Also A Star. For one, there is no first person POV switching; it is all in first person from Maddy's POV. However, some chapters are told through emails, IMs, hand drawn infographics, etc. The various ways Yoon chose to portray Maddy's POV can be considered playful to some and childish to others, but either way I thought it was a fun and creative way to tell a story. This playful varying chapter pattern is present across both of the books I've read of hers so far which clearly defines her writing style. You can love it or you can hate it, but it defines Yoon's writing style pretty clearly which I can respect.
The romance in Everything, Everything still progresses much too fast, although not as irritatingly fast as it was in The Sun Is Also A Star. It's unrealistic Olly would act so impulsively as he does in this book, but this quality is not atypical of a character in a fantasized romance.
I would recommend this book to the same audience that would enjoy The Sun Is Also A Star and other books that would be categorized under unrealistic romance.
