This is one of many of my book recommendations/reviews where I will say:
READ THE BOOK BEFORE YOU SEE THE FILM!!!
In my opinion, the book Everything Everything, outdoes its film adaptation by a hundred miles.
I found it incredibly engaging, with an interesting format and a surprising amount of humour.
I know there are a lot of "Seriously ill girl/boy meets a girl/boy that makes them break all the rules because they want to feel alive" books, but out of the ones I have read, this is definitely one of the better ones.
It's told from the point of view of Madeline, a girl who suffers from SCID, medically known as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, and commonly known as "Bubble Boy Syndrome".
Basically, Madeline is allergic to the world.
Through Maddie's observations about the world she sees outside of the house she hasn't left in fifteen years, to her text and email conversations with new boy next door Olly; we follow a story that is beautiful, sad and poignant with a twist that literally made me throw my copy at the wall.
Sorry, that was a long sentence, but my point still stands.
In comparison to Yoon's text, the film kind of fell short for me. I get it's difficult to portray a story where 80% of it is either internal monologue or emails and they did have some inventive ways of showing the conversations.
But it just didn't have the same feel as actually reading the book which, as I hope is obvious by now, I highly recommend.
Seriously, I take a lot of pride in my ability to predict where a story is headed, and the ending of Everything Everything was like WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?
My favourite quote...
“Life is a gift. Don't forget to live it.”
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