Have you ever been anticipating a book for what seems like forever, and then when you read it, it doesn’t live up to your expectations? This doesn’t happen to me often, but when it does, I wonder why I thought the book would be so good, and it wasn’t. This was the case with Everything, Everything.
I have heard some glowing reviews of this book, so maybe I am alone in my opinion that this book could have been more–or at least that it was lacking. What turned me off the most was how unlikely a few of the scenes were. There is only so much I will believe in a book that is not marketed as “fantasy” and this book was definitely not fantasy. I enjoyed the concepts that the author introduced, but some of them just didn’t cut it in the believability area.
That being said, this book is a fun read that I am glad I didn’t miss, even if I wasn’t as blown away as I thought I would be. I still read a book that had a good story, even if it wasn’t as solid as it should have been. This book also has a few themes that are a bit tough, which is always something that I think teens crave. Other than the fact that there are definitely underlying sexual feelings going on between two teens throughout this book (see content review below), I think younger teens would enjoy this book, as well as older teens, and maybe even adults.
Review of Advance Reader Copy
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 17 religious exclamations; 10 religious profanities; 2 scatological words; 3 derogatory names.
Violence/Gore: A minor has a deadly illness; a man is verbally and physically abusive to his family on several occasions in different scenes (reports of him yelling, smashing items, and verbally threatening wife and children); a character mentions their father is dead; a character has a nightmare that is frightening to her; a minor has a serious situation involving allergies and her environment, she is rushed to a hospital.
Sex/Nudity: Minors kiss on multiple occasions, these situations involve brief kisses and a few “make out” sessions; a minor girl undresses in front of a boy she likes, in a prelude to sex; a minor girl observes shirtless male surfers; a minor boy realizes he will have to sleep in the same bed as a minor girl he likes; a minor boy touches a minor girls breasts in a sexual encounter that they are both involved in; a minor boy and girl undress in front of each other; a minor girl observes her own body in a mirror in a skimpy swimsuit, and then shows her boyfriend what she looks like in it; two minors are undressed and have sex in a scene that spans several pages off and on with some brief, slightly descriptive detail.
Mature Subject Matter:
Premarital sex, teenage sex, lies, deception, serious illness, separation in marriage.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
A minor girl smokes in secret; a girl observes a teen smoking; a man drinks excessively; a man is seen holding a beer and drinking from it; a man is described to be drunk.
