Living Life in a Bubble

Kayla Konstantopoulos

Everything, Everything
Nicola Yoon

 
     “Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I, Maddy, am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster” (43). In the book Everything, Everything, by Nicola Yoon, Maddy has to make a choice. Live life in a bubble or risk everything for love. 

     In the book, Everything, Everything, by Nicola Yoon, the main character, Maddy, has a very rare disease called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). This disease causes you to be allergic to almost everything and have a very weak immune system. She refers to it as “bubble baby disease” because she can’t go anywhere; she has to stay in her house all day and every day, which she compares to a bubble. Since she can’t leave her house she only talks to two people: her mom and nurse, Carla. Her dad and brother died when she was only 4 months old from a car accident, so she barely remembers them. She has a routine that she follows every day: wake up, do school on the computer, read books, a checkup from Carla, play board games with mom, go to sleep and do it all over again tomorrow. Each day is the same, and nothing is different. She gets this point through to the reader by saying, “If my life were a book and you read it backward, nothing would change. Today is the same as yesterday. Tomorrow will be the same as today. In the book of Maddy, all the chapters are the same” (112). But suddenly, everything changes. When she looks outside her window one day instead of looking out and seeing the world she can’t actually go out to see, she sees a moving van with two parents, a daughter, and son. His name is Olly. They instantly connect. They message each other every day and write notes on their windows; she tells him things she’s never told anyone. Meeting Olly makes her feel emotions she’s never felt before: love, sadness, anger, etc. This forces her to make some of the hardest decisions she’s ever had to make, and it’s all because of the love she has for Olly.
     I honestly enjoyed this book very much. It starts off strong by introducing Maddy’s rare disease and continues to get more intriguing with each page. One of the reasons this book is so interesting is because of its plot and themes. This book has two main themes: don’t let the little things scare you, and there’s more to life than just being alive. The author makes these themes clear in many ways. After building an online message relationship with Olly, the fact that they can’t see each other in person kills her. Her whole life revolved around SCID but when she first meets Olly and realizes on all the things she’s missing out on she starts to wonder if she’s actually living or just alive. She starts to realize the difference between them when Carla says, “Life is a gift. Don’t forget to live it” (141). This sentence is repeated throughout the story by different people to show the importance of it.

     I would highly recommend Everything, Everything because of its ability to relate to the reader. Although this book isn’t completely relatable to life today because not many people have her illness, the relationships she shares with others is definitely like the ones we have now. The themes and storylines also become clearer because of the connections you can make to life today.

     Finally, this book is very captivating because of all the surprising events that happen. This is a coming of age story so the main character grows a lot. She starts off as a 17-year-old girl who reads all day without any interaction with people in the outside world but ends as someone who likes to take risks. The author gets this through to the reader by Maddy saying, “Everything’s a risk. Not doing anything is a risk. It’s up to you” (68). This shows how Maddy grows a lot after meeting Olly. The only reason she decides to actually live her life is because of him.

     I would recommend this book to people who like unexpected relationships and coming of age stories. Maddy continues to grow a lot throughout this book as well as her relationships with others, even the most surprising ones. This book sucks you into the story to where it feels like your not even reading anymore, which is part of the reason this is just an overall amazing book.