Everything, Everything

By -

 Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon provides a fresh take on a "coming of age" novel. We are introduced to our main character Madeline, who is a bi-racial 18-year-old who has been diagnosed with SCID. She is locked away in her white castle with air filters and white clothes to protect her from any triggers of the outside world. Madeline operates as the narrator of this story to provide direct accounts of how she is feeling. Reading each page feels as if we are reading her medical records; we are checking to see how she feels every page. When a new family moves in next door, Madeline begins to secretly message 18-year-old Olly. Olly is her prince dressed in all Black meant to introduce her to the world. After meeting him, her daily routine of isolation is completely disrupted. 

Everything, Everything feels like a perfect read for the time that we are in. How do you love someone you have never met in person? How to maintain relationships online? How do you show love when you are unable to have the physical touch? These are all questions that we are currently asking ourselves since the pandemic disrupted our realities in March. Exploring the world through Madeline's eyes makes a reader become appreciative of everything around them. 

With the use of images, tone, and suspense, readers are drawn into each page to discover how Madeline will break her situation to live a life worth living. 

Comments

  1. Candace BeebeOctober 15, 2020 at 10:39 AM

    I agree, this is the perfect book for some of the current events happening in our world today. All adolescents can relate to being separated from people that they want to be with and being afraid of the outside world making them sick. We all have to make the decision for ourselves what the difference between living and surviving is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Olivia BennettOctober 16, 2020 at 4:10 PM

    Hey A’Keriah,
    This book really does sound like the perfect read during this time of isolation due to the pandemic. I feel like students could really relate to this novel because of how they’ve been social distancing since March. I almost wish I had my own classroom this semester just so I could teach this book. It almost seems too perfect. This totally sounds like a book I would have loved during my John Green stage in middle school and early high school. I will definitely be considering reading this novel. I would love to see how the novel answers the rhetorical questions you ask in your blogpost.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C
Read more