Book Review :: Everybody Hurts, by Joanna Nadin and Anthony McGowan

Everybody Hurts by Joanna Nadin, Anthony McGowan
ISBN: 9780349002910
Published by Hachette NZ
on 3rd August 2017
Genres: Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Source: Hachette Publishing NZ
Find at Hachette NZ
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Matt and Sophia live in the same city, but they come from opposite sides of the track. By rights they should never have met. They definitely should never have fallen in love at first sight, of all cliches.

But, to their great surprise, they do. That's the easy part. It's what to do next that they struggle with.

Friends, family and circumstance are mostly against them. They betray themselves; then they betray each other. And in the end they learn, the hard way, what it takes for love to survive.

It's true what they say. Everybody hurts sometimes. But sometimes, too, the pain is worth it.

Last updated on 28 March 2023

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What is Everybody Hurts by Joanna Nadin and Anthony McGowan about?

In Everybody Hurts, Sophia doesn’t believe in a lot of things: a benevolent God, fake tan, conspiracy theories, or love at first sight.

Matthew has ridiculous friends and goes along with their stupid ideas … which lead him to the local hospital where they’re meant to be picking up girls. But then Matthew sees Sophia, and Sophia sees Matthew and her beliefs start to shatter, and there’s a whole of lot of love-at-first-sight cliches happening.

After a kiss from Matthew just moments after meeting, Sophia and he embark on a wild goose chase with an incomplete mobile number, a lost phone, a crazy friend (or two), a party, and the hidden truth that Sophia has a tumour; she was at the hospital because she is dying.

As the two teens navigate their feelings for each other, their families, their friends, their schooling, their teenage drama, and their accidents, there’s laughter and tears, heartache and lies, and truth.

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My thoughts on Everybody Hurts

Everybody Hurts was a very easy read, and I read it in just two sittings. It was your typical YA love story, told from the two main character’s perspectives, with many tropes we’re familiar with in the Young Adult literature world.

We had the female protagonist with a medical secret, the male protagonist with the retracted truth as to why he was at the hospital. We had your absolute nutter of a friend, the gay friend, the over-the-top friend. We had families being families, and parties where only bad things can happen.

The writing was pretty good, despite the collaboration between the two authors. Sometimes I find it a little jarring when there are more than one author, but I think it worked well for Everbody Hurts. There were a lot of colloquialisms from Leeds, England, so if you’re not aware of some of the British slang then it may feel odd at times, and there is a lot of bad language. However, each of the characters very much had their own voice, and I particularly enjoyed Sophia’s. She was blunt and a bit quirky, taking not you-know-what from anyone.

I feel like the tumour thing was not the main event. I mean it was there and it’s the reason the two met in the first place, but in terms of the story as a whole, you could have taken the entire issue out and the story would pretty much be the same. It didn’t add much to the story. But maybe that’s just me.

Overall though, it was an enjoyable read. Really easy, didn’t have to think about it too much, and didn’t pull on any tear-inducing heartstrings.

Have you read Everybody Hurts? What did you think? 

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Thank you to Hachette Publishing NZ for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.