Title: All the Water in the World           

Author: Karen Raney             

Genre: Contemporary        

Publisher: Scribner         

Format: Paperback 

Pages: 352

Rating: 4/5 stars 

Synopsis (Goodreads):

 

A stunning debut novel about a teenage girl and her mother as they grapple with first love, family secrets, and tragedy.

 

Maddy is sixteen. Smart, funny, and profound, she has loyal friends, a mother with whom she’s unusually close, a father she’s never met, devoted grandparents, and a crush on a boy named Jack. Maddy also has cancer. Living in the shadow of uncertainty, she is forced to grow up fast.

 

All the Water in the World is the story of a family doing its best when faced with the worst. Told in the alternating voices of Maddy and her mother, Eve, the narrative moves between the family’s lake house in Pennsylvania; their home in Washington, DC; and London, where Maddy’s father, Antonio, lives. Hungry for experience, Maddy seeks out her first romantic relationship, finds solace in music and art, and tracks down Antonio. She continually tests the depths and limits of her closeness with her mother, while Eve has to come to terms with the daughter she only partly knows, in a world she can’t control.

 

With unforgettable voices that range from tender to funny, despairing to defiant, this novel illuminates the transformative power of love, humor, and hope. 

 

Review:

Thank you @simonschusterca for sending me a copy of this book!

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There’s so many different aspects to talk about with this book! It centres around two characters, Eve and her daughter Maddy. Maddy has cancer, so she is fighting for her life, while also trying to have a normal life for a 16 year old. She starts dating a boy her age, she gets involved in environmental activism, and she loves to gossip with her friends. Maddy also has never met her father, so the book also focuses on Maddy’s attempt to reach out to her father, and get to know him and ask some questions she’s had for him for her whole life.

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Eve is also struggling to support her daughter while she’s fighting for her life. I thought the mother daughter relationship was very important in this book in a way that it didn’t spend a ton of time on it, but you felt the weight of this relationship throughout the book. I thought Eve was such a strong character, raising Maddy on her own, supporting her through cancer, while also trying to live a happy life herself. I thought that Eve’s point of view in the book was much more interesting! I wasn’t too sure about this book at the beginning, but then once I started to get to know Eve more, then I was hooked into the story! Definitely recommend this one!

 

Happy reading!