Coming of Age
Everything, Everything follows 18-year-old Maddy Whittier, a precocious and observant teen who also has SCID, a severe autoimmune disorder. Since Maddy’s diagnosis at a few months old, she hasn’t been able to safely leave her purified, sanitized, air-locked house. Maddy’s life, however, is a comfortable one: she spends her days reading and doing homework for her online classes, supervised by her nurse, Carla. In the evenings, she plays games and spends time with…
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Trust and Lies
When readers first meet Maddy, she completely trusts the two people with whom she has the most contact: Mom and Carla, her nurse. Mom and Carla prize trust, openness, and honesty over all else, and they teach Maddy to do the same. However, Maddy has new revelations about honesty as she grows up, falls in love with the neighbor boy Olly, and embarks on a secret trip with him to Hawaii. She…
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Family, Abuse, and Bravery
In many ways, Everything, Everything is an exploration of family dynamics—and in particular, the many different ways in which family structures can be dysfunctional and abusive, both verbally and physically. By showing how both Maddy and Olly begin to break free of their respective abusive family structures (and in Maddy’s case, discover that her relationship with Mom is actually manipulative and controlling, not innocently close), Everything, Everything suggests that choosing to make the change to…
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The Value of Experience
At the beginning of the novel, Maddy has no experience with the outside world; she hasn’t left her house since she was an infant. Because of her illness, Maddy’s “experiences” with the outside world are ones she gains vicariously through movies, the internet, and her beloved books. While Maddy initially believes that this kind of experience is all she’ll ever be able to safely have, her budding romance with Olly leads her to question whether…
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