Everything, Everything By Nicola Yoon

Let me start by saying that as a nurse, this book pissed me off. While the story is captivating, there are times where the story fall flat and had some big gaps. 

This is the story of Madeline Whittaker. A teenager who lives with a condition called SCID, which is severe combined immunodeficiency. It's basically where you are allergic to everything in the outside world. So, Madeline lives in a hermetically sealed house and has not been outside since she was diagnosed when she was a baby. Her younger brother and father died in a car accident around the same time she was diagnosed. The only people that she can see are her nurse, her mother, and one of her teachers that comes to visit. Now, this tipped me off right away, because when people are truly immunocompromised, they can't be around people, or they can but they have to wear a mask or a special hood. Second, is that her mother is a physician... So your telling me that your gonna spend 12-15 hours a day in a hospital, with a bunch of sick people, and come in and out of the house as you please...

Ok, lets go on.. Madeline is living her sad life when a boy moves in next door. Well, of course, Madeline and Olly (the boy) start talking and they fall in love. The nurse is cool with Olly coming into the house and hanging out, but no touching. Ummm.. ok, you expect two teenagers who like each other not to touch each other? Oh, and don't tell Mom, because she'll freak out. Now, if I was a nurse in this situation, there is no way I would let some random boy into the house without my "Boss" knowing. Was she really doing this as some sort of experiment, and if she is then shes not that great of a nurse.... Also, as a nurse who is taking care of this particular kind of disease process, wouldn't you want to do some research, maybe see a little bit of history, blood work... Nope... ok. 

So, Madeline and Olly fall in love and some drama happens and Madeline runs out of the house to help Olly when he is in a fist fight with his Dad in the yard. Cats out of the bag, Mom is pissed, nurse is fired (duh), and Madeline is forbidden to see Olly. Now, anyone who has been a teenager before, knows how well this works. It doesn't. Madeline, then decides to run away with Olly to Hawaii and have an awesome vacation. She makes it 5 days, through 2 airports, and doesn't get sick... RED FLAG!!! She wouldn't have even made it through the pollen the second she stepped outside... let alone through an airport one of the worse viral cesspools in the world. BTW... don't touch the escalator hand rails.. they are the worse.  

She goes 5 days without an issue until she wakes up in a swear with check pain. She goes to the hospital and on the way there, her heart stops and is restarted... Come to find out she has myocarditis. It would take a pretty severe case of myocarditis to cause cardiac arrest and most people would have a lot of severe symptoms before it got that bad. I do like books with pictures, and it's interesting that when she is sick, we see the hospital documents and her mom checks her out AMA, (against medical advice). Madeline is 18... her mom is not her power of attorney... how did she check her out?

Anyways, she gets home, shes back in her bubble, nurse lady is back (huh?) and she gets an email from a physician in Hawaii that says, "hey, btw.. I don't think your actually sick". She confronts her Mom and her Mom denies it. If I thought that my Mom was lying to me about something this huge, she would be the last people I would go to. I would gather as much evidence as I could before I confront someone about something. She talks to the nurse about it.. Nurse lady says yeah, I had my suspicions and that her Mom was never really right after her father and brother died in the car accident... WHAT??? If you had your suspicions, then why wouldn't you ask more questions and do more research? Madeline then goes to look for evidence (she should have done this way earlier) and finds out... oh, yeah, there is no evidence and her Mom is just really sad after her brother and father died and did want to "lose her". WTF!!!!

Then Madeline continues to live in the house (um, no, go live with nurse dumb dumb, she likes you), and strengthen her immune system per her new doctors orders. She gets to a point where she is feeling strong enough to go see Olly in New York after they moved away from his abusing father and they live happily ever after.  

What... what in the.. what did I just read. I know this is fiction and I know that the writer is not medical, but if your gonna write a book with a lot of medical parts to it, please do some research. It seriously drives us medical people insane!! I was so distracted by the medical holes and the obvious muchousens by proxy shit that it was hard for me to follow.