Book Review of Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

This book review is very personal to me, and very atypical in structure and contents. In fact, it hits at the core of the name for my blog. The URL and blog name are actually an Ecology term. A limited niche species is the opposite of a generalized species, which is a living species that can live in a broad range of conditions. It can feed on many different things. It can thrive in changing climates. It can make its home in various places, or of more than only one type of material. Generalized species are usually the most hearty and have the best chance at survival, because they can continue to adapt to changing conditions and still thrive. ...and then, there's a limited niche species, which can only eat a small selection of things, thrive in a certain climate, or live in a specific place or in a home comprised of a certain material.

What does that have to do with my book review of Everything, Everything? I am a limited niche species. Though my life-threatening allergies aren't quite as severe as the ones described in the book, they dictate what I can eat, wear, and do every day. If I am well enough to travel, I must cart an entire extra suitcase containing bedding, towels, and other things other people wouldn't dream of taking with them, all because I never know if something I touch will give me full body hives or make me stop breathing due to anaphylaxis. I use special air filters. I must read the ingredients on literally every label before I ingest a food or beverage. I carry my own hand soap in my purse (right next to a collection of EPI pens, inhalers, and other emergency medical intervention tools), because who knows if I'll be allergic to the one in the public bathroom? And, when things get bad (as they tend to do a few times a year), my allergies lead to a cycle of serious respiratory distress and infection which can require months of housebound supervised care and double-digit numbers of rounds of antibiotics paired with steroids to quell. 

This is not to say that you should feel sorry for me. This is just to say that I live with the challenge of being a limited niche species and that I picked up Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon hoping to see a bit of myself within its pages (something I have never before gotten to do with respect to this particular brand of chronic illness). But instead, Nicola Yoon sent me a powerful and deeply hurtful message with her book. *Spoiler alert.* She told me I couldn't have a happy, fulfilling ending with a defective immune system, and she said it by creating a character who was supposedly similar to me and then magically removing our similar challenge from her life in order for her story to resolve. Everything, Everything told me that even a novelist--someone who is literally paid to imagine things and dream big dreams and then share them with the world--couldn't envision a universe in which somebody like me could lead a worthwhile life. And, because of that, I feel this book sends a deeply damaging message to anyone struggling with health problems. It kicks readers when they are down. It is simply not okay.