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
Mom transforms Maddy’s bedroom into a hospital room. She’s there every time Maddy wakes up and Maddy often can’t quite hear her. Maddy wakes up and sees that Mom is about to put her back to sleep. She sits up quickly, asks Mom not to, and asks if she’s okay. Mom’s voice trembles and breaks, but she says that Maddy will be okay. Mom looks frightened and drawn. In a whisper, she asks how Maddy could’ve put herself in such danger. She asks how Maddy could’ve done this to her after everything. Maddy feels like her guilt is an ocean drowning her.
Though it’s understandable that Mom is hurt by what Maddy did, it’s also telling that she asks Maddy why she did this in a way that suggests she believes Maddy went to Hawaii to purposefully betray her, rather than because Maddy wanted to go. This reveals that Mom takes anything Maddy does for herself very personally, which explains some of why Maddy’s personality was so tied up in her relationship with Mom earlier in the novel.
Themes
Maddy lies in bed and thinks of what she regrets—everything. She thinks that she can’t live her life in this bubble now that she knows what she’s missing and fixates on Mom’s desperate look. Maddy reasons that loving someone like Mom loves her must be terrible. She reasons that love is a terrible thing and she doesn’t want anything to do with it.
Remember that Carla suggested that regret is part of living, which means that per Carla’s understanding, Maddy is only now truly living. In this sense, life isn’t all snorkeling happily in Hawaii—life is also experiencing pain and disappointing loved ones.
Themes
