Blog tour: EVERYONE WE’VE BEEN by Sarah Everett (+Giveaway!)

Title: Everyone We’ve Been

Author: Sarah Everett

Published: October 4th, 2016

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Find the Author: Goodreads | Twitter

I received this book for review on my blog! As always, my reviews are fair and unbiased.

Addison Sullivan has been in an accident. In its aftermath, she has memory lapses and starts talking to a boy that no one else can see. It gets so bad that she’s worried she’s going crazy.

Addie takes drastic measures to fill in the blanks and visits a shadowy medical facility that promises to “help with your memory.” But at the clinic, Addie unwittingly discovers it is not her first visit. And when she presses, she finds out that she had certain memories erased. She had a boy erased.

But why? Who was that boy, and what happened that was too devastating to live with? And even if she gets the answers she’s looking for, will she ever be able to feel like a whole person again?

From the premise, Everyone We’ve Been sounds like everything I love in a book. There’s a potential mystery boy, the element of an underlying mystery that has to be solved and a sense that there’s a whole lot of adventure lying between the pages. I was lucky enough to be asked to be on the blog tour and I couldn’t wait to get started reading as soon as it landed in my lap.

Addison, or Addie, has been in an accident that will change her life drastically. At first, she’s worried she’s seriously going crazy. She can see a boy no one else can see and I know that realistically, if that were to happen to me, I would be freaking out. In the time after her accident, Addie begins having these dips in memory that can’t be explained, twisted into the fact that this boy that only her eyes can see is forged into them.

Everyone We’ve Been is told in the before and afters of Addie’s accident which really gives the story another dimension of truth and normalcy. It keeps the plot steadily paced and engrossing and I found that slowly, as the truth of Addie’s accident, her memory gaps and the mystery boy came to light, I began to piece together the puzzle and underlying illusive aspect that seems to tie into her memory loss. Addie was straight away relateable. I love characters that feel like friends and someone you can just get as they tell you their story. The alternating past and present times really captured Addie’s character development and I found that because of this, it made her all the more real to me and I could connect with her so much better and feel like I was on the journey with her the whole way, too.

Overall, Everyone We’ve Been is a powerful, magnetic story bursting with potential and perfection. I found myself hooked to the pages at two a.m., compelled by the storyline that just seemed to ooze “keep reading me” qualities. Addie was a star character and I was rooting for her the entire way, with each new unveiling of information I found myself falling further into the skillful plot that keeps you guessing. Underneath the beautiful cover there is an even more lively story just waiting to be read and now that I have, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Everyone We’ve Been is one of the best hits of 2016 and I’m so glad that I had the chance to read it. Five stars aren’t high enough.

Young Adult readers!

Sarah Everett remembers growing up in enchanted forests, on desert islands and inside a magical wardrobe. She would only ever erase her memory of past karaoke performances and certain fashion choices. She was born in west Africa but currently resides in Alberta, Canada where she attends graduate school and writes YA novels. Visit her on Twitter at @heysaraheverett.