Until the rumble and steady beep of a moving truck are heard next door, and suddenly, there’s a boy to marvel over: a boy who wears all black, practices parkour as if he’s weightless and has a window that looks directly onto Madeline’s.įrom what Madeline can surmise through her window, Oliver - Olly - spends his days hanging out on his roof and shielding his mother and younger sister from his alcoholic, abusive father. She’s never weighed the heart-opening adrenaline rush of connection and newfound intimacy against the potential agony of heartbreak and rejection. The possibilities of love and loss aren’t an option for her. She inhales novels instead of fresh air, has online tutors (“If I were going to be something when I grew up, an architect is what I’d be”), and spends evenings playing games with her mother. In order for people to visit (and they don’t besides her nurse, Carla, Madeline’s only friends are virtual), they would have to endure a thorough physical and spend an hour in a decontamination airlock.įor a teenager who has never felt sunshine on her face or her bare feet on the grass - and for whom the future holds none of that - Madeline is remarkably grounded. She has SCID, or severe combined immunodeficiency, known as “bubble baby disease.” So Madeline is a princess trapped in a castle - except her castle is a spotless, decontaminated house in Los Angeles with white walls, where she lives with her mother, a physician. These are all things that Madeline’s compromised immune system can’t handle. The world outside the home of 18-year-old Madeline Whittier, the heroine of Nicola Yoon’s gorgeous and lyrical debut novel, is filled with threats: viruses, allergens, bacteria, deadly airborne particles.

Even if you knew love could kill you, what would you risk to experience it - just once? Just for a little while?

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon