Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

This book disappointed me. I know, I just spoiled my review and you could skip reading the rest of it now, but that’s okay. If you still want to read, here’s the full review. 😉

The blurb: What if you couldn’t touch anything in the outside world? Never breathe in the fresh air, feel the sun warm your face . . . or kiss the boy next door? In Everything, Everything, Maddy is a girl who’s literally allergic to the outside world, and Olly is the boy who moves in next door . . . and becomes the greatest risk she’s ever taken. 

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.

Content Warnings:

Language, teenagers making life-threatening decisions, and smut (my definition of smut is completely inappropriate romance. NO THANK YOU to any sexual content, because I firmly believe God hates book porn).

If you couldn’t guess from the content warnings, I didn’t finish this book. I loved it at first–the premise is fascinating, the characters are witty and quirky, and the content wasn’t bad until more than halfway through the book. Personally, I can handle the occasional curse word and using God’s name in vain. The characters were obviously not Christians–not even in name only. And I’d rather read about non-christian characters who act like it than stated Christian characters who don’t act like it. Either way, the romance in this book actually started with very good physical boundaries (yeah, I don’t think I read the full blurb–at least the wanting to kiss the boy next door part) and they made decent choices. That didn’t last. 

I sat on the couch, reading my ebook of Everything, Everything and then things went south. I started yelling NO so passionately that my sister came downstairs, thinking something was wrong.  Long story short, I stopped reading and returned it to the library. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone, and because of that I’m not going to gush on and on about how excited I was for the first half of it.

Books like this–books that promise a wonderful story and surprise you with something inappropriate–are why I write book reviews. And part of why I want to write and publish novels.

Looking forward: I want share more clean reads that have no content warnings and I absolutely recommend. Luckily, I still have staples/old favorites to share and I found a few new favorites this summer (actually I made a fun sneak peek of these on Instagram here)! I just haven’t posted those reviews yet, so don’t lose hope.

Next month will bring happier reviews–in the meantime, please leave a comment with one or two of your favorite books to recommend? The squeaky clean comfort reads that you don’t have to think twice before suggesting it, the books that you buy three extra copies of and give away at any opportunity…the family favorites. Share them with us!