Week 2: Theme

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Pages: 1-306

Theme: Forbidden Love

Many romance novels are very similar with different interesting elements. Everything, Everything has the classic Romeo and Juliet theme of forbidden love but includes new elements. There were many symbols and aspects to support this theme. One symbol incorporated in the novel is Maddys “illness”.  Another symbol is the window communication between Maddy and Olly. They go through so much over the course of the novel and fight so hard to be together.

The novel stands out due to Maddy's illness; although Maddy's true illness was her mother. Maddy's mother tries to keep Olly and Maddy apart by blaming the illness. Her mother was really just trying to protect her. Maddy's father and brother died in a car accident when Maddy was young and Maddy's mother never recovered. Maddy was sick as an infant and her mothers PTSD caused her to believe that Maddy had SCID.  Luckily, Everything, Everything ended on a much more positive note than Romeo and Juliet but the plot lines were very similar. Maddy and Olly's love developed quickly throughout the novel.

It seemed like when Maddy first saw Olly she was in love. She saw him through her window when he was moving into the house beside hers. The symbol of the wall always between them was prominent throughout the novel. Because of her "illness", Maddy could never leave the house. Maddy manages to convince her nurse into allowing Olly to visit her, requiring decontamination. Even when Olly and Maddy meet face-to-face, there is a wall between them. Olly and Maddy were supposed to stay on opposite sides of the room to avoid the spread of germs. The visits continued for weeks with them a wall away from each other. One visit leads to them sharing their first kiss and the wall started to crack. After that their relationship developed much more rapidly leading to Maddy running away and purchasing tickets for the both of them to Hawaii. After Maddy finds out the truth about her "illness", the wall is finally broken.

As their relationship developed through window messages and emails, it was clear they had a connection. The plot was interesting because sometimes there would just be massages in a chapter. The reader could read the way Olly and Maddy connected. The messages made the novel, overall, more realistic. By including those messages, Yoon developed a more modern story. These days, many conversations are done through technology. Yoon also may have included the messages to symbolize the wall previously mentioned.