Everything, Everything
Nicola Yoon, 2015
Young adult RomanceContemporary fiction
A girl allergic to the world falls for the boy next door—a sealed-room romance about risk, longing, and the cost of being safe. A sheltered girl's voice carries a quiet, plain longing, with tender romance and family friction moving at an easy pace.
Feels like longing, tenderness and melancholy. About love, identity and family.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy YA romance built on close first-person voice, longing, and family tension. The story stays largely inside one girl's sealed world, so some middle stretches may feel slow if you want lots of external action.
Why read it
It gives you a tender, fast-reading story about the risk of wanting more than safety, with a narrator whose limited world makes small choices feel large.
A page from the book
The one day a year when everything you're missing becomes impossible to ignore.
My birthday is the one day of the year that we’re both most acutely aware of my illness. It’s the acknowledging of the passage of time that does it. Another whole year of being sick, no hope for a cure on the horizon. Another year of missing all the normal teenagery things—learner’s permit, first kiss, prom, first heartbreak, first fender bender. Another year of my mom doing nothing but working and taking care of me. Every other day these omissions are easy—easier, at least—to ignore. Nicola Yoon.Everything, Everything was Nicola Yoon's debut; it became a #1 New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a 2017 film.
Books that feel like this
More by Nicola Yoon
The Sun Is Also a Star
Nicola Yoon, 2016
Two teenagers meet in New York on the last day one of them may stay in the country — a novel about coincidence, science, and the case for love.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Everything, Everything for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy YA romance built on close first-person voice, longing, and family tension. The story stays largely inside one girl's sealed world, so some middle stretches may feel slow if you want lots of external action.
- What is Everything, Everything like?
- A sheltered girl's voice carries a quiet, plain longing, with tender romance and family friction moving at an easy pace. Feels like longing, tenderness and melancholy. About love, identity and family.
- What should I read after Everything, Everything?
- If you liked Everything, Everything, try Point of Retreat (Colleen Hoover), Hopeless (Elsie Silver) and Conversations with Friends (Sally Rooney).
A taste of the feed
The difference between wanting someone and being certain about them.
My heart pounds against my chest. Not because I’m nervous. Not even because I want her worse that I’ve ever wanted her before. It’s pounding against my chest because I realize I’ve never been so sure about the rest of my life than I am in this moment. This girl is the rest of my life.
Point of Retreat · Colleen Hoover
Loving someone who has spent years editing himself down.
There’s something fractured about Beau. About his spirit. Like he’s torn between so many versions of himself and doesn’t know which one to pick. I wish he knew it’s okay to be all of them with me.
Hopeless · Elsie Silver
The person whose description of you becomes the way you see yourself.
After school we used to lie in her room listening to music and talking about why we liked each other. These were long and intense conversations, and felt so momentous to me that I secretly transcribed parts of them from memory in the evenings. When Bobbi talked about me it felt like seeing myself in a mirror for the first time. I also looked in actual mirrors more often. I started taking a close interest in my face and body, which I’d never done before. I asked Bobbi questions like: do I have long legs? Or short?
Conversations with Friends · Sally Rooney
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