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
Olly calls Zach and Zach shows up a half-hour later. Zach immediately begins playing air guitar and singing. His dreadlocks keep time with the music. He tells Olly to call him Zachariah, as he’s going to become a rock god. Olly refuses. They head out for lunch and Olly asks if Zach has told his parents about wanting to be a musician or about being gay. Zach hasn’t shared either thing with his parents and tells Maddy that his parents believe only in family as defined by a man, a woman, and two kids; education, as in a four-year college; and hard work, which means no art or music. Maddy suggests that Zach’s parents must at least suspect he wants to be a rock star given his hair, but he explains they think it’s a phase.
Just like Maddy and Olly, Zach also suffers because of his parents’ unfair and misguided expectations of him. By showing three teens who are going through three very different experiences that nonetheless share this quality, the novel makes the case that breaking free from a parent’s expectations like all three are doing is a natural and expected part of coming of age—and given the way their parents react to their children, it suggests, too, that this is difficult for everyone involved.
Themes
Olly asks Zach to borrow his phone and they briefly discuss that Olly’s dad is still controlling and awful. Zach asks Maddy what’s wrong with her parents. Maddy can’t come up with anything wrong with Mom, except that she’s probably dying from worry. Maddy says that Mom always puts her first, which surprises both boys. Olly hands Maddy the phone, says she has to tell Mom she’s okay, and leaves for the restroom. Maddy reads emails from Mom to Olly, sent from Maddy’s email address, asking where they are and finally saying that Mom is on her way. Maddy feels guilty, resentful, and panicked. She wants to tell Mom she’s fine, but she also hates that Mom read her private emails.
Maddy’s inability to come up with any fault on Mom’s part speaks to the degree to which she trusts Mom to be there for her and have her best interests at heart. Though this is still clearly true, Maddy’s displeasure at discovering that Mom read her emails also suggests that Maddy shouldn’t really trust Mom so unthinkingly, given that Mom was willing to invade her privacy to figure out where Maddy is and then decide to (in Maddy’s understanding) spoil the trip by crashing it.
Themes
Zach asks Maddy if she’s okay and clarifies that he’s asking about her illness. Truthfully, Maddy says she’s fine. She quickly sends Mom an email asking her not to come, saying she’s fine, and insisting that it’s her life. Zach asks if Maddy really bought pills and Maddy is too shaken to effectively lie. Zach seems to understand immediately, but says he won’t tell Olly—he knows what it’s like to lie. Maddy asks what’ll happen if he tells his parents the truth, and he says that they’d make him choose. He wouldn’t choose them. Zach suggests that growing up means disappointing the people they love. Olly returns and Maddy tells him, honestly, that she feels great.
In general, the novel makes it clear that Zach is right: it’s normal for teens to disappoint the adults in their lives as they grow up and figure out who they are. This still doesn’t mean that the process is easy, however, as made clear by Zach’s aside that for the time being at least, it’s easier to remain closeted and quiet about his dreams than it’d be to take pride in his identity and actively pursue his dreams of being a rock star.
Themes
