Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything, Everything, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Trust and Lies
Family, Abuse, and Bravery
The Value of Experience
Summary
Analysis
Maddy spends the next few days looking for anything that might explain what happened to her and to Mom. She wants to see how and why Mom went mad, but Mom is in no state to tell her. Maddy wonders if she’d even understand the grief and fear that caused Mom to take away Maddy’s life. Dr. Chase suggests that Mom seek counseling and cautions Maddy that Mom might never be able to talk to her about it. Carla, meanwhile, tries to convince Maddy to stay with Mom, both for Maddy’s physical health and Mom’s mental health. Maddy considers emailing Olly, but she’s not sure what to say. Carla manages to convince Maddy to stay, but Maddy thinks the person she was before she found out the truth is dead. A week later, Maddy installs a lock on her bedroom door.
Installing a lock on the door is another way for Maddy to assert her independence from her mom, while her willingness to listen to Carla shows again that Carla is the adult in Maddy’s life whom she trusts the most to give her sound, thought-out advice. The sense that Maddy is a new person yet again speaks to the power of learning new information about oneself and loved ones. In this sense, the discovery of the phony SCID diagnosis functions much the same way as having sex did, as it shows Maddy what else is possible in the world.
Themes
