Tudo, Tudo… E nós (Nicola Yoon)

EN “Everything, Everything" is a book created by the Jamaican writer Nicola Yoon, released in Portugal in September 2016, by the publisher Presença. In addition, a film adaptation was developed in 2017 that garnered mixed reviews because, although commercially it was successful, the script had some problems following the book, ending up having some ideas too different from the original. Nonetheless, Nicola writes such beautiful stories that it is impossible not to try to adapt her books. Along with this book, there is at least one other adaptation, “The Sun is also a Star" , which is also quite successful in the market.

And back to the book, Madeline Whitter is an eighteen-year-old girl who lives confined to her home and cannot live with other people, besides her mother Pauline, her nurse Carla and her daughter, Rosa, because she lives with a disease known as SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency). All people who come into contact with Madeline have to disinfect themselves before entering her house. Because of all the restrictions she has to live, Maddie dreams of knowing the world, especially the ocean, something she recognizes as impossible. When she least expects it, a family moves into the house next door and Madeline is intrigued by Olly, who shares the same interest in her. However, Pauline does the possible and impossible so that her daughter does not know Olly, which arouses their curiosity even more, eventually bringing them even closer. Olly manages to pass his number to Madeline and from there they start communicating every day. As they get to know each other, Madeline becomes increasingly frustrated with her life and wishes to meet Olly in person. Despite initially opposing this idea, Carla allows this meeting to happen but with all cares possible, and always keeping a high distance between them. There, it is possible to realize that a beautiful love story is developing, even if it is unthinkable that they touch each other.

Without wanting to denounce too much what happens, I can only say that not everything is what it seems and that we need to have a little perception that sometimes life tricks us and it sometimes comes from the people we like the most in the world. So it is natural to feel like laughing or crying when reading this book. The way the author writes and describes the emotions on paper are quite intense, which forces us almost to live as if we were this character and feel everything it is feeling.

I loved this book and recommend it to everyone. It is very easy to read and the book has a different dynamic in which much of the dialogue is in the form of text or email, or has also the outbursts of Madeline, making the book much more interactive and making us learn more and more about the book.

Highly recommend it!

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