Everything All At Once Review

Author: Katrina Leno

Pages: 358

Publisher: Harper Teen

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!






Synopsis:
Lottie Reaves is not a risk taker. She plays it safe and avoids all the ways she might get hurt. But when her beloved aunt Helen dies of cancer, Lottie's fears about life and death start spiraling out of control. Aunt Helen wasn't a typical aunt. She was the author of the bestselling Alvin Hatter series, about siblings who discover the elixir of immortality. She knew how magical writing could be, and that words have the power to make you see things differently.
In her will, Aunt Helen leaves one writing project just for Lottie. It's a series  of letters, each containing mysterious instructions that are supposed to get Lottie to take a leap and- for once in her life- really live. But when the letters reveal an extraordinary secret about the inspiration for the Alvin Hatter series, Lottie finds herself faced with an impossible choice- one that will force her to confront her greatest fears once and for all.

My thoughts: 
I LOVED this story! I thought the whole premise behind the story was really unique, and I really loved getting to follow Lottie along her journey and getting to read Aunt Helen's letters along with her and wondering what the next one would tell us. This story also came to me at the perfect time in my life. I recently lost my Granddad to cancer at the end of August and was devastated by his loss. His illness was very out of the blue for my family, so all of us were very stunned. I really related to this story and a lot of Lottie's feelings. So many times I caught myself saying, "YES! That is exactly how I feel!" or finally getting a feeling that someone understands what I am going through and what I am feeling. I felt like Katrina Leno really did an awesome job of portraying the grief process and how everyone copes differently and capturing the fact that it truly is a process. It has its highs and its lows, and you will have good days and bad days. This book was so much more than just a really awesome story to me, it was therapeutic and it made me finally feel known.

As far as the writing itself in the story, I thought Leno did a great job of portraying the characters. I really felt like I knew Lottie and Em and Sam and Helen. I might would have liked a little more development of Abe and their parents, but overall I thought she did a wonderful job. I also absolutely loved the plot twist. Oh my gosh, I totally did NOT see that coming. I knew there was something special about Sam all along, but oh my goodness. I loved that I was caught so off guard. Now looking back on the story, I can totally see the little hints that Leno was leaving trying to get us to the conclusion, but I totally didn't pick up on them in the moment I was reading them. I feel like that is a sign of a quality storyteller, they can leave you foreshadowing hints but you never even realize that it is happening. Finally, I loved the ending. I was very satisfied with how everything was wrapped up, but Leno left us with one loose end that we get to decide how it ends up. I thought it was a very well-told story with a great ending. This will definitely be a book that will be a reread for me in the future.

Uppercase Experience:
I received this book through the Uppercase subscription box which I got as a gift for my birthday. This was the August box, and I had a blast with the Uppercase reading experience. I thought it was so cool that I got to have a few little insights into Katrina Leno's inspiration and thoughts behind why she wrote the book and her thought process behind different parts of the story. It really did add to my enjoyment of the book, and I began looking forward to getting to a page number that had a code to go online with! I definitely want to get another Uppercase box in the future because this one brought me so much joy and made my reading experience so unique!


Thanks so much for taking the time to read my post! I hope you enjoyed it and read Everything All At Once very soon!