Everything You Want Book

With high school mercifully drawing to a close, Emma's only question is, "What next? And can it please be completely unlike what happened before?" Then one lucky little lotto ticket seems to give the answer-or does it?

Everything You Want is a story about what happens to an average family when money is suddenly no object. Although Emma is bright and creative and has a supportive family, she isn't exactly excited about life after high school. She's got her share of unresolved issues, including a disastrous ending to her crush of a lifetime, which left her with a broken heart and a bloody nose (how do you move on when the only boy you've ever wanted to date punches you in the face?). Then Emma's family wins fifty million dollars in the lottery, but instead of making everything better, it just makes everything more complicated.

Everything You Want is the story of a young woman trying to figure out what she needs when, suddenly, she can have anything she wants.

KLIATT

How did it happen that I've recently read TWO books about families changed by windfall fortunes? (See also The Fortunes of Indigo Skye in KLIATT's March 2008 issue.) In both stories, the protagonist is an older teen. In Everything You Want, Emma is a freshman in college, rather miserable and lonely, even though her roommate is perfectly friendly. Emma's older sister is trying to make it in NYC and Emma misses her. I won't try to explain about the goose on the cover, but the goose plays a role in Emma's father's purchase of a lottery ticket, a ticket that wins millions and millions of dollars for the family. Then everything changes, but oddly enough, not necessarily for the good. When you can do everything you want, it puts added pressure on finding out what you really do want—no excuses. When her parents retire from their jobs and go to Colorado to ski for the winter, Emma leaves school and holes up in the family cabin in upstate Michigan, relieving her depression by working as a waitress. She is still trying to recover from being deserted by her best friend Josh. She meets several new guys, but nothing goes smoothly in these relationships. Emma needs to get centered, to find out what she wants to do and where to do it. The title, Everything You Want, takes on a whole new dimension. It doesn't help when the money actually makes life more complicated, for her, for her parents' marriage, and her sister's romance. YAs will enjoy reading this story. Just thinking about how money would change everything is an intriguing place for a story to begin, especially in the hands of a skilled writer. Reviewer: Claire Rosser