Everything, Everything

June 15, 2015
Madeline Whittier, a biracial 18-year-old, has severe combined immunodeficiency, a rare condition that renders her allergic to nearly everything and requires her to live inside a carefully sealed environment. Madeline’s contact is limited to her physician mother and her full-time nurse, until handsome Olly moves in next door. Madeline falls for him from her window and begins disobeying the rules that keep her from the outside world. Despite the serious dangers posed by Madeline’s medical condition and Olly’s violently alcoholic father, Yoon’s debut reads breezily. Many chapters consist of single, short paragraphs, as well as emails, chat exchanges, and Madeline’s pithy book reviews (of Lord of the Flies, “Spoiler alert: Boys are savages”). Yoon’s husband provides diagrams, cartoons, and other illustrations that reflect Madeleine’s claustrophobia, whimsical longings, excitement over Olly, and sense of humor. The main conflict is resolved in a few brief pages and reflects an overall tendency for things to happen a bit too easily. Even so, this is an easy romance to get caught up in. Ages 12–up. Agent: Sara Shandler and Joelle Hobeika, Alloy Entertainment.

Starred review from July 15, 2015
Suffering from "bubble baby disease," Madeline has lived for 18 years in a sterile, sealed house with her physician mother. Madeline is a bright, witty young woman who makes the best of life with a compromised immune system by playing games with her mother, studying with online tutors, and writing brief spoiler book reviews on Tumblr. Her life is turned upside down when a troubled new family moves in next door and she sees Olly for the first time. Olly, a white boy "with a pale honey tan" and parcours moves, wants to meet her, but Madeline's mother turns him away. With the help of an indestructible Bundt cake, Olly perseveres until he gets her email address. Madeline-half Japanese, half African-American-chronicles her efforts to get to know Olly as she considers risking everything to be with him. She confides to her wise and understanding nurse, Carla, the truth she keeps from her overprotective mother: that it's painfully hard to be a teenager with a crush, yearning to venture outside and experience the world. Spot art by the author's husband, occasional lists in Madeline's handwriting, emails, and instant-messaging transcripts add a lively dimension to Madeline's quirky character. In her debut, Jamaican-American Yoon gives readers complex characters and rich dialogue that ranges from humorous to philosophical. This heartwarming story transcends the ordinary by exploring the hopes, dreams, and inherent risks of love in all of its forms. (Fiction. 12-17)

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Starred review from August 1, 2015

Gr 10 Up-From the first page, Madeline Whittier is a sympathetic character who has had to watch the world from the inside of a bubble-literally. Her diagnosed condition of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency is a life sentence that limits her to a world of two people: her mother, who is a doctor, and her nurse. Everything changes when Olly and his family move into the house next door. Olly is the kind of inventive guy who figures out a way to communicate with Madeline, and over the course of the next few months Madeline becomes Maddy, a young woman who takes potentially deadly risks to protect Olly emotionally, if not physically. Maddy's and Olly's hastily planned trip to Maui and their tastefully described liaison while there suggests a mature teen audience, but readers of Cammie McGovern's Say What You Will (HarperCollins, 2014) and Wendy Mills's Positively Beautiful (Bloomsbury, 2015) will fall in love with this humorously engaging story of a girl who discovers life, love, and forgiveness in new places. VERDICT Everything, Everything is wonderful, wonderful.-Jodeana Kruse, R. A. Long High School, Longview, WA

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015
Grades 8-11 Featuring illustrations by the author's husband, David Yoon, Nicola Yoon's debut tells the story of Maddy, a biracial teenage girl with severe combined immunodeficiency, or SCID, who's essentially allergic to the world. Cared for by her physician mother and Carla the nurse, Maddy is confined to her antiseptic white home, where she communicates with tutors and online friends through her computer. She's never had a companion her own age until the arrival of Olly, who moves into the house next door. With Carla as her ally, Maddy defies her mother, allowing Olly into her house and her heart, and putting her very life at risk. Romance readers will root for the precocious Maddy as she falls hard for the boy next door, while careful readers will entertain the significant possibility of a plot twist. Though the interspersed illustrations and other documentation don't significantly enhance the reading experience, they do quicken the pace in a book that teens in search of a swoonworthy read will devour.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

October 26, 2015
Madeline “Maddy” Whittier, an 18-year-old, has severe combined immunodeficiency, a rare condition that renders her allergic to nearly everything and requires her to live inside a carefully sealed environment. That doesn’t stop
her from falling in love with Olly, the boy next door. Since much of the novel is told from Maddy’s point of view, reader Turpin’s versatility is on full display here, not only with Maddy and Olly but also with Maddy’s anxious, protective mother and Carla, her loving, funny nurse. Actor Daymond occasionally chimes in to read Olly’s messages to Maddy. Voice-over veterans Hillary Huber and Ann Marie Lee also appear in brief, unheralded cameos, giving voice to the parts of the story that feature other narrative devices such as journal entries, medical reports, and other kinds of text. At times, these abrupt transitions give the audiobook a disjointed feel, but Turpin’s performance is stellar. Ages 12–up. A Delacorte hardcover.

January 1, 2016
Maddy, who suffers from Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, is resigned to her sequestered existence until Olly moves in next door. Their secret friendship blossoms into romance, then escalates into euphoria and then disaster when the couple runs away to Hawaii. With its assured twists and sensitive depiction of loneliness in many forms, this novel offers a thoughtful exploration of how we define living.

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2015
Yoon's debut novel adds a twist to the time-honored genre of a terminally ill teen seizing his or her final days: for Maddywho is suffering from Severe Combined Immunodeficiency and who, allergic to the world, hasn't left her house in seventeen yearsit's living to the fullest that would kill her. Maddy is resigned to her sequestered existence of online classes, voracious reading, and human contact with only her devoted mother and a sympathetic home nurse, until fellow teen Ollyisolated in his own way by an abusive father and frequent relocationmoves in next door. He and Maddy begin a secret friendship that blossoms into romance, then escalates into euphoria and then disaster when the couple runs away to Hawaii. The amalgamation of brief narrative chapters, emails, chat transcripts, sketches, and other visually distinct ephemera lends a jagged immediacy to this unconventional love story, and the minimalist intensity of Yoon's prose is well suited to the unfiltered wonder with which Maddy experiences the world outside her bubble. With its assured twists, matter-of-fact presentation of a biracial (black and Asian) protagonist, and sensitive depiction of loneliness in many different forms, Everything, Everything offers a thoughtful exploration of how we define life and living, while still delivering a breathless romance. claire e. gross

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)