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A review by papertraildiary
Everything All at Once by Katrina Leno
4.0
Here's my review from The Paper Trail Diary:
After reading Lost & Found last summer, I was eager to read another wistful story by Katrina Leno, who must be a big fan of letters, because the theme was in that book and this one, too. In Everything All at Once, a girl named Lottie is grieving her aunt Helen, who was a bestselling author of a children’s book series (basically J.K. Rowling) who died too young from cancer. Lottie finds out that Helen left a stack of letters for Lottie to read after she passes away, which end up being prompts for Lottie to challenge herself and her anxiety.
I really enjoyed this read – it was perfect for a bookworm letter writer in the summer. Lottie was sweet and relatable, and I was always curious where she would end up next. I would pack my bag and jump right in there with her if I could. Her experiencing new things was laced with melancholy, but you could see the love that Helen put into her letters – she knew Lottie so well, she could predict when Lottie would read her letters.
Of course there’s a love interest, the mysterious Sam, the best friend, Em, and the brother, Abe, who accompany Lottie on her adventures, because doing them all alone would be much too lonely, and the group of them had a lovely relaxed dynamic of teens in the summer even though they were harbouring secrets, frustrations, and their own stories.
I appreciated the focus on Lottie’s anxiety, and how it was triggered by her grief, though it wasn’t an overwhelming detail to the story. There were great descriptions, like:
“How are you doing lately?”
'Good. Fine. Terrible. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night, convinced the normal darkness of my room was a coffin. Sometimes I read the obituaries in the morning paper and googled things like most unusual deaths. I’d come across a Rilo Kiley song that way, something upbeat and positive but really dark and uncomfortable, and I’d listened to it twelve times in a row one night, falling asleep with the words still crawling across my ceiling.'
I know I had a really good time reading this book and it left me with a sweet wave goodbye. Katrina even interspersed the story with (fake) pages from Helen’s series (like how Rainbow Rowell did in Fangirl), and with what I’m sensing as another theme, there’s just a touch of magical realism to keep you on your toes. I loved how an aunt could leave her niece letters, that that was a way for them to communicate, even after she was gone. That definitely wouldn’t give the same effect if you got emails from your aunt after she died!
After reading Lost & Found last summer, I was eager to read another wistful story by Katrina Leno, who must be a big fan of letters, because the theme was in that book and this one, too. In Everything All at Once, a girl named Lottie is grieving her aunt Helen, who was a bestselling author of a children’s book series (basically J.K. Rowling) who died too young from cancer. Lottie finds out that Helen left a stack of letters for Lottie to read after she passes away, which end up being prompts for Lottie to challenge herself and her anxiety.
I really enjoyed this read – it was perfect for a bookworm letter writer in the summer. Lottie was sweet and relatable, and I was always curious where she would end up next. I would pack my bag and jump right in there with her if I could. Her experiencing new things was laced with melancholy, but you could see the love that Helen put into her letters – she knew Lottie so well, she could predict when Lottie would read her letters.
Of course there’s a love interest, the mysterious Sam, the best friend, Em, and the brother, Abe, who accompany Lottie on her adventures, because doing them all alone would be much too lonely, and the group of them had a lovely relaxed dynamic of teens in the summer even though they were harbouring secrets, frustrations, and their own stories.
I appreciated the focus on Lottie’s anxiety, and how it was triggered by her grief, though it wasn’t an overwhelming detail to the story. There were great descriptions, like:
“How are you doing lately?”
'Good. Fine. Terrible. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night, convinced the normal darkness of my room was a coffin. Sometimes I read the obituaries in the morning paper and googled things like most unusual deaths. I’d come across a Rilo Kiley song that way, something upbeat and positive but really dark and uncomfortable, and I’d listened to it twelve times in a row one night, falling asleep with the words still crawling across my ceiling.'
I know I had a really good time reading this book and it left me with a sweet wave goodbye. Katrina even interspersed the story with (fake) pages from Helen’s series (like how Rainbow Rowell did in Fangirl), and with what I’m sensing as another theme, there’s just a touch of magical realism to keep you on your toes. I loved how an aunt could leave her niece letters, that that was a way for them to communicate, even after she was gone. That definitely wouldn’t give the same effect if you got emails from your aunt after she died!