This post is part of a series on the blog where I share some of the nuggets of wisdom and inspiration — related to writing and/or life — that I find steeped in the pages of novels that I’ve read.

This author was recently at the 2015 Decatur Book Festival. If you love romance, then this is a book for you. It made its debut at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Young Adult Hardcover.

Imagine if you were allergic to the world. You spent your whole life in your house — never venturing out — until you the love of your life moves in next door.

Maddy’s love interest, Olly, loves math and there is some discussion about chaos theory — how even one small change can lead to unpredictable results.

I know a lot of us think, “What if I have done this instead of that?” “How would my life have been different if I chose A instead of B?” The point is that we’ll never know because we chose a path and that is the path we are currently living. It does make you ponder though. At what moment was my life set on the current path I’m living? What would happen if I could change that moment?



From Maddy, the POV protagonist of the novel Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

I think if I could just find the moment, I could take it apart piece by piece, molecule by molecule, until I got down to the atomic level, until I got to the part that was inviolate and essential. If I could take it apart and understand it then maybe I could make just exactly the right change.