You Are the Everything

August 15, 2018
A teenage girl and the boy she has a crush on appear to be the only survivors of a plane crash and must figure how to cope with tragedy's aftermath.Elyse Schmidt, a white teen, and her classmates were returning from a band festival in Paris. The trip was not as wonderful as Elyse had hoped it would be. She got sick from wine, didn't perform well, and got into a fight with her best friend, Kath, an African-American girl. On the flight home, she is seated beside her crush, Josh Harris, an African-American boy she draws dreamy comics about. After the cataclysmic plane crash and long recovery period, both Elyse's and Josh's families move from California to Wyoming in an effort to start over and escape the public eye. Gradually, all the things Elyse has ever imagined are coming true, the most important being a relationship with Josh. Before the crash brought them together, Elyse could only speculate what it would be like to have him as her boyfriend; once it occurs, she is truly happy. As the days go on, memories of life before the crash flood her mind, merging with the present until the shocking reveal at the end. This is a complicated story that explores unfulfilled dreams and ideas of what might have been.Well-written and emotionally resonant, this is an unusual and poignant story. (Fiction. 14-18)

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September 3, 2018
Something goes wrong with the plane taking Californian Elyse Schmidt and her fellow high school band members home from their trip to Paris. Knowing a crash is imminent, Elyse prays that at least she and her crush, Josh Harris, be saved. The two are the only survivors, and the second part of this intriguing novel finds Elyse living an idyllic life with Josh as her boyfriend. To escape the postcrash limelight, the teens and their families move to Wyoming, where Elyse has always felt she belonged, and where she inhabits a dream house and even has a pet horse. But something about Elyse’s new, near-perfect existence rankles. Short-term memory lapses prevent her from remembering what happened days or weeks earlier (she doesn’t remember learning how to ride her horse), and she doesn’t understand why she hasn’t grieved over the loss of her best friend, Kath, who died in the crash, or why all the people she’s recently met seem vaguely familiar. In a novel that challenges concepts of time and reality, Rivers (A Possibility of Whales) examines wish fulfillment and subconscious defenses. Although the story’s pace moves unevenly, Rivers evokes the surreal quality of the world that Elyse sees. Ages 13–up. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary.

Starred review from October 1, 2018
Grades 10-1 *Starred Review* You are more than 30 pages into the novel when something catastrophic happens. Until that point, Elyse Schmidt relates fairly commonplace teen drama in second person, as in: You are on a plane, sitting next to your crush, Josh Harris. You are in a fight with your best friend, Kath, who is seated in front of you. Then the plane crashes, and Elyse vividly describes the horrible aftermath?�she and Josh are the only ones to survive, although they both have suffered terrible injuries. The narrative moves to a football field in Wyoming where Elyse and Josh are lying on a blanket under the stars. Their conversation, still related in second person, circles around the things that have happened to them, and how they have found an extraordinary love for each other. It's an unusual story, moving from intensely introspective scenes through an almost mystical exploration of trauma and death. Elyse is both fully revealed in her detailed accounts of events and held distant in the second-person narration. Philosophical readers will find much to love here; Rivers picks apart the nuances of friendship and romance, with their attendant loyalties and conflicts. Other readers might drown in the details. This is an unusual and compelling novel that skillfully plays with narrative perspective.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
Rivers's unsettling second-person-perspective novel immerses readers in the experience of sixteen-year-old protagonist Elyse, flying home from a school trip in Paris when the plane terrifyingly crashes into a mountain. The rest of the story has an increasingly disorienting, dreamlike feel as Elyse and the only other survivor, her longtime crush Josh, recover in Wyoming. As Elyse less-than-lucidly wrestling with grief and her sanity, readers will ruminate on loss, fate, and death.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from July 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-Elyse is happy to be next to Josh Harris (always known by both his first and last name) on the flight back from a band trip to Paris. Sitting in front of her is Kath, her best friend, but they're not speaking because Kath ditched her for a boy while at the Eiffel Tower. Elyse is working on her graphic novel Me and Josh Harris: A Love Story when suddenly the plane tilts and then crashes. Only Elyse and Josh Harris survive. Picking up after long hospital stays, Elyse and Josh Harris (with their families) have both moved to Wyoming for a fresh start and are in a relationship. She still feels enormous guilt about surviving when Kath did not and continues having conversations with Kath, at times confusing the past with the present. Living with short-term memory loss, Elyse often "wakes up" in the middle of a conversation or event with no memory of what is happening or where she is. She experiences life as though she is viewing it from above, referring to herself as "you" throughout. Despite the distancing tone, the author grounds the story with a protagonist fully aware that she is living through extraordinary circumstances. This is good choice for those who enjoyed E. Lockhart's We Were Liars or books with pieces that only fit together after a surprising ending. VERDICT Fans of unreliable narrators and twist endings will clamor for this story of romance and survival.-Kefira Phillipe, Nichols Middle School, Evanston, IL

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