Ella is your typical teen, trying to engage and do well in school, balancing family and friends with extracurricular activities. She’s a responsible girl who is known for making good choices. One night she’s driving her best friend home and loses control of the wheel, resulting in a crash that kills her best friend, Hayley.

Having been friends since basically forever, Ella and Hayley knew everything about each other. Missing her friend and desperate to feel close to her again, Ella begins to talk to and spend time with Sawyer, the boy Hayley was dating before she died. Both of them are deeply grieving the loss of their relationship with Hayley, and they eventually start to see each other as more than just friends with a mutual loss–Ella and Sawyer are falling for each other. 

Despite the circumstances, Ella seems like she has everything under control and is working through her grief in a healthy way, even helping to clean out her dead best friend’s room so Hayley’s mom doesn’t have to do it. Which is how she comes into possession of Hayley’s diary, one of the few keepsakes she ends up taking with her as a memento of their close friendship. She doesn’t necessarily intend to actually read what is written inside, but she just can’t bear to throw it away.

As things between Ella and Sawyer begin to heat up, something seems a bit off with their relationship. Taking action on a thought that had been percolating for some time, Ella begins to read the diary she found in Hayley’s things, hoping to gain some insight into Sawyer and his behavior. That decision just seems to complicate matters more, to the point that Ella doesn’t know who she can turn to.

I’m always on the lookout for great new YA books, and if the cover and title catches my eye I’m usually game. Seeing this book being compared to a Colleen Hoover novel did make me hesitate a bit to even give Everything We Never Said a try, as I’ve read several of Hoover’s books and only been impressed with one, but I decided that I’d give it a go and see. Whether you came for the mystery and stayed for the romance or vice versa, at its core, this book has a pervading theme of hurt people just trying to heal. 

Review of a Digital Advance Reading Copy from Penguin Young Readers Group

Reviewer’s Note: While this is technically a YA novel, it does have quite a few themes and scenes that I personally deem more adult matter (see Content Analysis for more information). Growing up as the oldest of four girls, I was often the one seeking out new books to read and then passing them down to my younger sisters, as long as they passed the test of not having too much inappropriate content. It was frustrating, to say the least, as my parents were pretty strict with what content they would allow, and I can remember beginning a book and liking it only to have the letdown of having to discontinue reading. (I’ll admit that sometimes I’d continue reading the book because it was just too good not to finish.) Everything We Never Said would be a book that would not have been shared with my sisters at that time. Thankfully, this website exists and readers can easily browse reviews and content to assist in evaluating if a book will meet their preferences for content before they invest reading time.

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: 9 religious exclamations; 65 mild obscenities; 3 religious profanities; 1 derogatory name; 87 scatological words; 37 anatomical terms; 1 offensive hand gesture; 8 F-Word derivatives.

Violence/Gore: A minor has a flash back of a car accident that occurred while she was driving, her car going off the road and her best friend dying in the accident, the driver waking up in the hospital with cracked ribs and some bloody wounds, flashbacks like this occur multiple times throughout the book; a minor has a recollection of a story she was told of a family member protecting her family from gunshots and still having shrapnel in her foot years later; a minor is mentioned to be squeezing a piece of broken glass while she is deep in thought and causing her hand to get a small cut that bleeds; a mother of a minor girl’s friend is mentioned to have lots of verbal altercations and small fights while she is drinking; a brief creepy scene occurs when a girl is getting ready to go to bed and realizes someone else is in the room with her, it turns out to be her boyfriend who climbed through the window to visit her; a minor boy holds his hand over his girlfriend’s mouth to try to keep her quiet while they are trespassing and making out so they’re not discovered, not realizing how badly she is trying to breathe; a minor gets upset and throws an object at the wall while talking to his mom, causing her to say something about him reminding her of his abusive, drunk dad; a man hits a minor so hard in his car that her head cracks against the window and causes her head to bleed; a girl recalls deadly accident that occurred and suddenly remembers how her friend was saying someone was trying to kill them; a brief description is given of a family dog that was scared of storms to the point that he dug his way out of a secure cellar, causing broken teeth and bloody paws; a man breaks into a minor’s room at night and knocks her out with no further detail given other than the aftermath of the girl waking up afterwards confused; a boy recalls fights between his parents when he would go to bed worried his dad would badly injure or kill his mom; a bat is used as self-defense against an adult who is chasing minors.

Sex/Nudity: Anime porn is mentioned; a man kisses his wife on the head; a girl mentions finding her friend a “hot man snack”; a minor boy kisses a minor girl’s cheek; a brief scene occurs where a boy touches a girl’s hand and they embrace and kiss briefly; a mention is made of a minor not having quite had sex yet; a minor is mentioned to be served at a bar because she was letting the bartender look down her shirt; a brief scene occurs where a boy and a girl kiss each other and touch each other, and convey how much they want the other one; an older man is mentioned to stare creepily at girls, especially when he is at his girlfriend’s house and her daughter walks to her room after a shower in only her towel; a scene occurs with minors kissing each other and running their hands over each other’s bodies, the girl puts her fingers inside the waistband of the boys jeans and realizes she is touching his underwear which causes the boy to become very excited especially because the girl is mentioned to be wearing short shorts; the previously mentioned boy thinks about the scene that just occurred and wishes he could have her on his lap again; a girl asks her friend if she and a boy are “boning”; a rather lengthy scene occurs where a boy and girl make out with explicit detail of kissing and touching; dirty talk and role playing are referred to; an older man is mentioned to have been sexually involved with a student of his, it is later revealed that he got her pregnant and she got an abortion after leaving the “relationship”; minors trespass onto property of YMCA in a brief scene and undress down to their underwear and get into swimming pool to make out; an older man is mentioned to wink at minor girls multiple times throughout the book.

Mature Subject Matter:

Domestic abuse; teen pregnancy; abortion; loss of a loved one; student-teacher sexual relationship.

Alcohol/Drug Use:

A minor is mentioned to drink a can of beer at a party; an adult is seen smoking a cigarette; an adult woman is mentioned to have alcoholism; minors are mentioned to vape; a minor is mentioned to be served alcohol at a bar with no ID requested; smoking weed is referred to; a girl is referred to as someone who has becoming an alcoholic and having alcohol poisoning in her future.