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 her life and health are actually more important than what she might gain by experiencing the outside world firsthand. Through Maddy’s trip to Hawaii and her later discovery that her SCID diagnosis is illegitimate, Everything, Everything insists forcefully that gaining experience is worth the risk to one’s innocence and safety—and at times, denying a person experiences actually does more harm than anything else.
When the reader first meets Maddy, it’s clear that she has worked hard to come to terms with all the things she’ll never be able to experience in real life. Instead of dwelling on this, Maddy turns to books and very consciously enjoys them in the same way she might otherwise enjoy these experiences firsthand. Because of this, Maddy is able to vicariously experience life “Outside” and uses her imagination to enjoy everything from kissing to the ocean and having real friends. This doesn’t mean, however, that Maddy has never wanted to see what life is like Outside: in a diary entry from when she was eight years old, she wrote about a family with children around the same age who moved in next door. Seeing them made Maddy desperately want to go outside and play with them, something she was never able to do. This was a major formative experience for Maddy, as it impressed upon her that wanting to experience life Outside would never bring her anything but heartache. Vicarious experiences through books and movies, meanwhile, allow her to safely engage with the outside world both emotionally and physically.
Maddy’s world begins to open up when Olly and his family move in next door, in the same house where the children lived when Maddy was eight. Maddy is immediately curious about Olly, but she also proceeds with caution as they begin emailing, instant messaging, and getting to know each other—her last experience taught her that there’s no way getting close to Olly will ever end well. Despite these reservations, Maddy soon discovers that everything Olly can tell her about, as well as Olly himself, is intoxicating. He can tell her, for instance, what it’s like to swim in the ocean, and once the school year starts, he makes a point to send her pictures and messages detailing exactly what his school day is like. This, combined with the experience of having a real, live boy whom she’s attracted to visit her regularly, forces Maddy to question whether it’s really in her best interest to actively deny herself even the desire for real experiences. After Maddy and Olly kiss for the first time, Mom eventually finds out what’s been going on. She fires Carla and bans Maddy from communicating with Olly. At this point, Maddy begins to truly take Carla’s advice—that love is worth the risk and potential pain—to heart. She comes to the conclusion that her life isn’t worth living if she doesn’t get to experience at least some of what the world has to offer before she dies, which leads her to secretly apply for a credit card and purchase plane tickets for her and Olly to visit Hawaii.
Being in Hawaii is a transformative experience for Maddy, and for the most part, it helps her come to a better understanding of herself and of the world around her. She and Olly snorkel, jump off cliffs, and have sex—all things that make Maddy feel more whole, human, and alive. With this, the novel suggests that experiences like these are what make life work living. Disaster strikes after only a day on the trip, however, when Maddy becomes deathly ill. For the few months that it takes her to recover, Maddy cuts things off with Olly and tells herself that she doesn’t regret what she did—but it’s not worth it to try again. However, things begin to change when two months later, the doctor who treated Maddy in Maui writes and shares that from what she could tell, Maddy doesn’t actually have SCID. Instead, she allows that while Maddy did experience a serious heart problem, what happened to her is something that could’ve happened to anyone. This leads Maddy to discover that Mom fabricated Maddy’s SCID diagnosis after the tragic deaths of Maddy’s dad and brother.
Through this, and Maddy’s appointments with specialists in the weeks after the discovery, the novel reveals the true and very basic value of life experiences and the consequences of attempting to protect someone the way Maddy’s mom tries to protect Maddy. Because Maddy has spent her entire life in a sanitary environment, her immune system is like that of an infant—she doesn’t have the ability to fight off the sorts of viruses and bacteria that healthy people’s immune systems learn to guard against as children. In this way, Mom actually made Maddy less safe and less prepared to handle everything the outside world has to offer, even if her intentions were good. With this, Everything, Everything insists that while books and movies may teach valuable lessons, those lessons are no substitute for real experiences. People’s emotional development, growth, and overall health depend on experiencing the world firsthand, whether that means simply stepping outside or traveling hundreds of miles.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Value of Experience ThemeTracker
The Value of Experience Quotes in Everything, Everything
“Madeline,” He says happily, clapping his hands together. He’s my favorite of all my tutors. He never looks at me pityingly and he loves architecture like I love architecture. If I were going to be something when I grew up, an architect is what I would be.
“There he is!” Mr. Waterman exclaims. He clucks at the scene for a few moments and then turns to me. His merry eyes are a little less merry than usual. “It’s just wonderful, my dear. But how will he eat all that scrumptious food with his helmet on?”
I look back at my astronaut. It’d never occurred to me that he’d want to eat the food.
Actually, mine’s not blank at all, but I really can’t tell him how beautiful his eyes are. They’re Atlantic Ocean blue, just like he’d said. It’s strange because of course I’d known that. But the difference between knowing it and seeing them in person is the difference between dreaming of flying and flight.
“I’ve seen pictures and videos, but what’s it like to actually be in the water? Is it like taking a bath in a giant tub?”
“Sort of,” he says slowly, considering. “No, I take it back. Taking a bath is relaxing. Being in the ocean is scary. It’s wet and cold and salty and deadly.”
That’s not what I was expecting. “You hate the ocean?”
He’s grinning now, warming to his topic. “I don’t hate it. I respect it.” He holds up a single finger. “Respect. It’s Mother Nature at her finest—awesome, beautiful, impersonal, murderous. Think about it: All that water and you could still die of thirst. And the whole point of waves is to suck your feet from under you so that you drown faster. The ocean will swallow you whole and burp you out and not notice you were even there.”
“Can I have my Internet privileges back?” I have to try.
She shakes her head. “Ask me for something else, honey.”
“Please, Mom.”
“It’s better this way. I don’t want you to have a broken heart.”
“Love can’t kill me,” I say, parroting Carla’s words.
“That’s not true,” she says. “Whoever told you that?”
How am I supposed to go back to my old life, my days stretching out before me with unending and brutal sameness? How am I supposed to go back to being The Girl Who Reads? Not that I begrudge my life in books. All I know about the world I’ve learned from them. But a description of a tree is not a tree, and a thousand paper kisses will never equal the feel of Olly’s lips against mine.
Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddys: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small price to pay for it. The first Maddy is surprised at the direction of her thoughts. The second Maddy, the one from the Hawaii photograph? She’s like a god—impervious to cold, famine, disease, natural and man-made disasters. She’s impervious to heartbreak.
The second Maddy knows that this pale half life is not really living.
He’s much too smart to fall for this, but he wants it to be true. He wants it to be true more than he wants the truth. The smile that breaks across his face is cautious, but so beautiful that I can’t look away. I would lie to him again for that smile.
“Of course I regret it. A lot of bad things happened on that trip. And when my mother and father died, I couldn’t go back for the funerals. Rosa doesn’t know anything about where she’s from.” She sighs. “You’re not living if you’re not regretting.”
What am I going to regret? My mind cycles through visions: my mom alone in my white room wondering where everyone she’s ever loved went. My mom alone in a green field staring down at my grave and my dad’s grave and my brother’s grave. My mom dying all alone in that house.
“Be careful,” Olly calls out from somewhere behind me.
I’m not sure what that means in this context. Be careful because I may drown? Be careful because I may get sick? Be careful because once you become a part of the world it becomes a part of you, too?
Because there’s no denying it now. I’m in the world.
And, too, the world is in me.
By eighteen years old, other teenagers have separated from their parents. They leave home, have separate lives, make separate memories. But not me. My mom and I have shared the same closed space and breathed the same filtered air for so long that it’s strange being here without her. It’s strange making memories that don’t include her.
I wish I could undo the last few months of knowing him. I would stay in my room. I would hear the truck beeping next door and I would remain on my white couch in my white room reading my brand-new books. I would remember my past and then I would remember not to repeat it.
“Because of the circumstances of your upbringing, we’re not sure about the state of your immune system.”
“What does that mean?”
“We think it’s possible that it’s underdeveloped, like an infant’s.”
“An infant?”
“Your immune system hasn’t been exposed to a lifetime of common viruses and bacterial infections. It hasn’t had time to get experience with fighting these infections. It hasn’t had time to get strong.”
