You Are the Everything
You Are the Everything
The graphic novel you are slowly, almost accidentally, creating is called ME AND JOSH HARRIS: A LOVE STORY, a title that was sort of meant to be a joke but also not exactly funny. How can something you want so bad be a punch line?
“That’s bananas,” Kath said, when you showed her. “You should at least change his name.”
“I can’t. Then it wouldn’t be real. Anyway, it feels more proactive than mooning. It’s like that book The Secret. I can secret it into being true. Maybe. Theoretically. Anyway, isn’t it better to turn it into, like, creative output? It’s not like I’m going to get it published or something. It’s not like he’ll ever see it.”
“Imagine if you do sell it!” She started laughing. “And his dad orders it for the bookstore and then says, ‘Son, this book has your name on it!’ Then they open up the first page and realize that it is him, and you, and---“ She had to stop talking because she was laughing too hard to continue. Then she made that “you’re nuts” sign with her finger, twirling it at her temple, crossing her eyes.
“Stop!” But you were laughing, too.
It was funny. It is funny.
But it is also maybe true love.
You flip to a clean page and start drawing a random scene. It’s like drawing your daydreams. It doesn’t mean anything, it just comes to you, a fleshed-out scene, and you feel compelled to put it on paper. This one is you and Josh Harris at some kind of a dance. You’re wearing a strapless dress. He’s wearing a tux but the tie is half hanging off. If Kath saw it, she’d get the giggles again. “You have no idea what having a boyfriend is really like!” she’d say. “I love eighties movies, but real relationships are not like Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy staring longingly into each other’s eyes! Fully half of any relationship is feeling annoyed that the other person hasn’t texted you or if they gave you a cold sore or something. Did you know cold sores are really herpes?”
When Elyse and her crush, Josh Harris, are the only two people to survive a plane crash on their way home from a class trip, they are drawn together. In the aftermath of this major event, they struggle to deal with the newfound fame (or rather, the infamy) of being plane crash survivors. Together with their families, they move away from their hometown in an attempt to build a new life while grieving the loss of their old ones. You Are the Everything edges very close to stream of consciousness writing as Elyse flashes between her pre- and post-crash life.
You Are the Everything is written from the second person perspective; instead of observing as Elyse lives her life or reading Elyse’s thoughts, the reader becomes Elyse. By times, this is uncomfortable as Elyse makes choices that not every reader would make, or she feels emotions that the reader may not be feeling. Of course, most readers are not used to reading an entire novel from this perspective; I think, though, that the use of this perspective lends itself well to the main ideas in this book as the situations themselves are often uncomfortable.
The main character, Elyse, is a very down-to-earth and relatable teenage girl in the flashback scenes, but not always in the present. This makes sense, given that her brain is struggling to cope with this massive life event. This is not the love story I expected it to be, where the girl and boy survive a plane crash and live happily ever after together. It’s really about surviving trauma, how people cope, and the lengths a person’s mind will go to in order to protect itself.
You Are the Everything is a complicated novel with a complex ending that would give a less experienced reader pause. There is definitely the possibility for some confusion, but it also provides a bit of opportunity for open-ended discussion and thought.
Allison Giggey is a teacher-librarian in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.