Everything, Everything characters

Also known as Maddy

Appears from the start

An eighteen-year-old who has spent almost her entire life inside a sealed Los Angeles home because she is believed to have severe combined immunodeficiency. She studies remotely, reads constantly, and experiences the outside through glass and imagination. Her highly controlled routine has kept her safe but has left her with almost no peers or independent life.

First appears in chapter 2

Madeline's mother and physician, the central companion in her protected life. She oversees the medical rules of the house, works outside it, and spends evenings playing games or watching films with her daughter. Her vigilance is grounded in the conviction that ordinary exposure could kill Maddy.

First appears in chapter 3

The nurse who monitors Maddy's vital signs, supervises her days, and understands her moods better than most people can. Warm, practical, and occasionally willing to question the emotional cost of perfect safety, she is the other regular presence in Maddy's home.

Also known as Olly

First appears in chapter 9

The teenage boy who moves into the house next door. Usually dressed in black and rarely still, he catches Maddy's attention through his quick physical movements and playful attempts to communicate across the distance between their windows.

First appears in chapter 9

Olly's younger sister. She arrives with the new family next door and shares with Olly an alertness to tension inside their household.

First appears in chapter 12

Olly and Kara's father, whose drinking and volatile temper dominate the Bright household. Maddy can see enough from her window to recognize that his family adjusts its behavior around the threat of his anger.

First appears in chapter 12

Olly and Kara's mother. She is quiet and tense after the move, living under her husband's controlling and abusive behavior while her children try to protect her.

First appears in chapter 17

Carla's teenage daughter. Her ordinary freedom provides an implicit contrast with Maddy's isolation, and Carla's concern for both girls influences the risks she is prepared to take.

First appears in chapter 8

Maddy's father, known to her through family photographs and the story of the accident that killed him when she was a baby. His absence is part of the loss around which Maddy and her mother have built their small household.

First appears in chapter 8

Maddy's older brother, who died in the same accident as their father while Maddy was an infant. She has no personal memory of him and knows him through the family history her mother preserves.

First appears in chapter 91

A young employee Maddy and Olly meet at their Maui hotel. He is friendly and candid about wanting a life in which he can be open about himself, making him another example of someone planning a route toward freedom.

First appears in chapter 99

The physician who treats Maddy after her collapse in Hawaii. She receives the medical history Pauline provides and oversees Maddy's care during the frightening interruption to the trip.