Previous
24. Wonderland; Life is Short
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything, Everything, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Trust and Lies
Family, Abuse, and Bravery
The Value of Experience
Summary
Analysis
On Monday, Maddy has no emails from Olly in her inbox. She insists it doesn’t bother her, but she refreshes her email multiple times per second as Carla walks in. Carla asks if Maddy found another dead cat video, but Maddy admits that Olly didn’t email her all weekend. Carla looks nonplussed and asks if Maddy emailed him. As Carla takes Maddy’s vitals, Maddy explains that she asked Olly to not write and asks Carla how ridiculous she’s being. Maddy insists that she likes Olly too much, but Carla suggests that it’s silly for Maddy to lose a friend over a “little bit of heartache.” Maddy thinks that in all she’s read about heartache, it’s never just little. Carla assures Maddy that this will pass, and that Olly is too cute to ignore. She insists that love won’t kill Maddy.
The differences in how Carla talks about heartache and how Maddy conceptualizes future heartache speak to the generational and experiential differences between the two. Carla likely recognizes that any heartache Maddy might experience will pass, while Maddy is inexperienced and only has her books to go off. While Maddy doesn’t go into great detail about the contents of her library, her views on the matter imply that she doesn’t have literary models for recovering from heartache successfully.
Themes
