You Are The Everything by Karen Rivers

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

When this book was sent to me, I was excited because I thought it was something I would really enjoy. Unfortunately it just missed the mark for me. You Are The Everything by Karen Rivers is a YA contemporary that follows Elyse Schmidt, a teenage girl with a hopeless crush on a classmate named Josh Harris. But when Elyse and Josh are the only survivors of a terrible plane crash, suddenly everything falls into place. It's almost as if they were destined to end up together, and that alone is what allowed them to live while everyone else perished. 

Then Elyse starts experiencing confusion, memory loss, and other symptoms of PTSD and her life is suddenly not looking as perfect as it initially seemed. Will destiny prevail, or will everything turn out to be different than originally thought?

I just personally couldn't connect with this book. I didn't care about the characters, and nothing that happened really mattered to me. Elyse was just not likable, and even though I wanted to feel for her, I just couldn't make myself care. Everything that happened just seemed too perfect, too serendipitous, even when you factor in the twist (which I also saw coming from a mile away). It was also written in second person point of view, which while it was interesting and a nice change, got really old very quickly. The stream of consciousness was just too much.

I did really appreciate the representation of an interracial relationship here, and thought that was a great thing to address. 

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Thanks to Algonquin Young Readers for sending me a finished copy of this book! You Are The Everything by Karen Rivers is out now!