TYF Column: What Are We Reading?

Whenever I experience that first day of warm weather each year, I have a yearning to pull out a new summer read. When I was a teenager, this usually meant a Sarah Dessen or Meg Cabot novel, but now (since I still read a lot of YA in my twenties), I pulled out Morgan Matson’s upcoming (upon writing this) book, The Unexpected Everything. The bright cover of girl outside an ice cream truck with a huge white fluffy dog is picturesque and totally enticing. I’m not one to judge books by their covers, but this one caught my eye.

I’m about midway through the book, and it’s surprisingly wonderful. The story and the main character feel familiar but there’s a charming quality to the book and its exploration of female friendship. The romance is cute, but it is the way the girls interact and bond with each other that is joyful, deep and fun. While Matson incorporates text messages and emoji dialogue to give an authentic and contemporary flair to the writing, it also provides commentary about how young people can choose between engaging with people and shutting themselves off from the world. It’s easier these days to be so absorbed in your phone (or technology in general) that you opt for solitary activities over social ones. In this case, the author exemplifies what it’s like to find a healthy balance between experiencing the world through and outside a screen. On another related level, it’s about being open and facing the uncomfortable and unexpected challenges life can throw at you. This is far from the main focus of the novel, which is a coming of age story more than anything – but it’s a multi-layered story that tackles and balances a number of interesting themes.