Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me access to the free advanced digital copy of this book.

Then Everything Happens At Once by M-E Girard is more of a young adult chick lit with romance elements. The story follows Baylee, a sixteen-year-old teen girl who has a crush on her best friend, Freddie, and an emerging crush on a pen pal named Alex. She's also the sister of a disabled sister who is immuno-compromised. The story is set during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic when no one had any ideas on how to stem the curve. But Baylee's mother knew better and made demands that Baylee, for the sake of her sister, stop engaging with all of her friends, especially her crush, Freddie, for the sake of her sister's health. When Freddie begins to date Baylee's other friend, Baylee becomes upset and sets off to create a relationship with Alex, but what she doesn't know is Alex is a female. Prior to learning about Alex's gender, Baylee hadn't been questioning her sexuality. Yet, Alex made Baylee feel desirable, which no other person had ever made her feel before. Ultimately, Baylee finds a way to mess everything up with her mother, Freddie, her other friend, and Alex. The romance story basically evolved into some sort of quadruple. If this all seems like a lot, it was. Baylee wouldn't let a pandemic stop her from having sexual encounters with Freddie. She wasn't honest with Alex or her other friend (whose name escapes me) about her secret relationship with Freddie. The entire story seemed like a journey for Baylee to decide who was the best person for her. Ultimately, this wasn't a true romance with a happily ever after.
Baylee had to grow up and discover which direction she needed to head toward. I don't know how I feel about the entire story. There were relatable parts because I have always been a plus-sized woman and my teen years were extremely challenging. Yet, I felt very little romance between Baylee and Freddie and Baylee and Alex. Surely, there were feelings and hormones, but at the end of the day, there wasn't much to sustain long-lasting relationships.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sigh.

Once more:
Sigh.

This was just not good.

There are major inconsistencies with our MC choices, and not in a way that can be justified by her age, but in a way that indicates poor/lazy writing. The MC is awful, but unbelievably so. Real teenagers can be selfish, and of course they don't always have the best decision making abilities but this was just not what came across in the story. It was as if the author wrote bits and pieces across several years of what she thought teens are like (she's wrong), and then finally put it all together without ever checking if as a whole, this MC felt like on person or several.

Just poor writing choices over and over again. I was excited for the fat postive rep, the sex positive rep, teen navigating covid, and yet all of this was done HORRIBLY.

This book was one that I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did. It was too real with the quarantine and finally having everything in your grasp only to know you could lose it before it starts. Love the characters and the friendships between them. It was too real in ways but still fun and shows that you never know what is really what you need

I really thought this book could do something good/important in the first couple of pages, but it really fell off. Really fell off. A story about a high school love triangle set at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in a Toronto suburb, but the main character, Baylee, continually makes terrible decisions that hurt herself and everyone around her. Every chapter I said to myself "she better learn something from this" but she really did not. The 5 page epilogue had a rushed attempt at closing one of the love interests, but the long and short of it was that she broke a girls heart to have sex with the fuckboi who lives down the street and doesn't really care about her. Literally the guy that the first half of the book is about him "feeling out" multiple girls at once, then just discarding them once he's finished. The narrative spins that going for this boy is the right choice. I was really awestruck -- it was not just a bad book, but a bad message.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

I often find myself either hating or loving young adult books. As an older adult, that's understandable. It can be difficult to relate to teenagers and young adults.
This book gives a voice to .. "not conventionally attractive" group of young adults who often feel like they aren't anyone's type or not desirable to others. The author did a great job making the main character Baylee likeable and relatable. They also covered a slightly "taboo" topic of sex / intimacy for this age group.

I adored this book, more than I thought I would. And i'll definitely recommend it to others!

I loved the fat rep in the book but beyond that it was just meh. the story didnt carry much beyond that, I wanted more and it never came

This book seemed to be very honest in its portrayal of conflicting emotions, various viewpoints, and teen angst.
One way the author did this was to portray how an overweight girl might think. Flimsy furniture , buying cloths and ordering food all develop a complexity that Baylee has to deal with. ( I wish the author took it a step further that there is always something that a teen sees as negative within themself). Baylee is in her head so much of the time she might only see what she is focused on and not the whole picture..
A second way the author used honesty was the actions of the characters. I liked how the author showed rebellion being more a force of nature than a decision to make. The honest dialogue and true emotions were really well done. Life is messy and so are we.
Enjoy!

Ugh, I know at times teenagers can be selfish but Baylee really takes the cake. She’s careless and reckless during the height of the pandemic when she knows her mother is worried about her sister with cerebral palsy!

The writing here isn’t bad and there’s great examples of real internal struggles of fat humans but Baylee is just awful. She’s lying to and deceiving everyone and has no care for anyone’s feelings but her own and I found her so frustrating (and im frustrated with the author making the only fat character a bad person despite being the MC., we already get such little media representation and only a small percentage where we’re the lead).

2 stars for decent writing and some good characters.

⭐️ ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Children’s for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.

Then Everything Happened at Once is a very apt title for this book. It initially takes its time to set up the scene and its characters in the first half, only to send them into a tailspin in the second. But despite tonally varying in places, I like that the narrative never strayed too far from the central goal of coming-of-age and self-discovery.

Much will likely be made of how this book is set partially during the height of the pandemic. Some readers will pass up on it as a result, and I appreciate that it’s bluntly stated in the blurb to allow readers to make that informed decision. As someone who doesn’t yet have a super strong opinion either way on the matter, and feel that as long as authors are doing it justice, it’s fine, I respect that this was a personal look at how it impacted these specific characters. Granted, the main character makes some terrible choices in that regard, but it does reflect the reality of how some people behaved (and not just the teens either).

Baylee is not always likable, but she is believable. She’s exploring her sexuality, more or less for the first time, and she makes more than a few big mistakes. While the love triangle may be a dealbreaker for some, I personally didn’t mind the messiness with which she explored her attractions to both Freddie and Alex.

And I also appreciate the nuanced exploration of body issues. The author’s introduction, discussing the balance between confidence in oneself and battling internalized fatphobia due to living within a fatphobic society and hearing that messaging constantly was pretty well done.

This is a solid queer YA contemporary, and I recommend it to anyone who likes queer stories with messy protagonists.

I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. I read the blurb around this book and it is not something that you see in books all that often. I was excited to read it and when I got my hands on it I started to read it right away. Baylee had a guy friend that did not look at her like she wanted. Then she had the sweet Alex who wanted her just the way she is. I so wanted to love this book and the stance it took, but the more I read I just did not really like the way it went. Baylee changed and not for the better she went about all of it the wrong way. I did not like the ending of the book either.

An honest and captivating journey of self-discovery and first love, with moments of self-reflection at every turn.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Then Everything Happens At Once follows fat Canadian teen Baylee as she navigates complicated friendships on the brink of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though this book did have its good moments, particularly with its sex-positive stance and fat representation, ultimately the longer it went the less I could stand it. Baylee, our main character, is, according to the author in their opening note, an outwardly confident girl who struggles with internalized fat phobia. I’m not sure that I buy that — at least, not the outwardly confident part. At one point, Baylee busts her nose in a minor car accident, and upon exiting the vehicle is so convinced that her injury and her weight have made her a spectacle that rather than feigning cool confidence, she outright asks a paramedic if everyone is laughing at her. Of course, there’s no harm in Baylee being deeply broken by fatphobic bullying and the trauma of being a fat person in a world that uplifts skinny people, but in a book where that’s one of the main character’s primary internal conflicts, I would expect these issues to resolve at least partially with Baylee truly coming to a place where she feels capable of loving herself. Instead, she starts sleeping with a boy and just kind of. Stops talking about it.

Beyond the issue of representation, Baylee is really just not a good person. For all the friends she supposedly has, she only ever puts work into relationships that serve her, and even then she walks into every relationship automatically assuming that she is the butt of the joke, the one everyone looks down on, etc. She uses this twisted perspective as an excuse to use people, to the point where she is pointlessly stringing along two people for the bulk of the book. Neither individual forces her to suffer any real consequences for this beyond a couple weeks of radio silence on the part of one character, which is then promptly forgiven and forgotten after one honestly mediocre handwritten letter.

Additionally, Baylee’s younger sister is special needs and has a variety of medical issues that put her at high risk. When COVID hits, despite knowing how important it is to keep her sister safe, Baylee repeatedly and flagrantly breaks quarantine and social distancing and masking rules. When she is subsequently punished by her mother for this behavior, she decides that she is in the right and her mother is being unfair, and then turns around and is given a nice place to stay and a job by a friend’s mom. The issue between Baylee and her mother is ultimately resolved with a single conversation, and Baylee gets to now permanently break quarantine and social distancing guidelines because she disregarded everyone else’s health and forced her family’s bubble to expand.

All of this might still be okay if Baylee at the end of the book felt like she had truly learned anything. But instead, she gets to have her cake and eat it too, and the most she went through was some heavy whining until people decided, with little to no action or redemption on her part, to forgive her.

I don’t want to write this book off entirely, because I do think there may be kids out there who see something of themselves in the way Baylee feels constantly beaten down and broken, but I’m not sure that due diligence has been done here to show good, healthy growth in our troubled main character, and so I’m not entirely sure what audience I would recommend this to, if any.

Then Everything Happens at Once is a realistic contemporary YA that explores the difficulties as not only growing up during Covid but also figuring out exactly where you fit in and want you want out of life and relationships.

I wanted to connect with Bailey, our MC, so badly since many time I felt like I was the “DUFF” in my friends group growing up. However, she was difficult to connect with at times. Even though she didn’t “love herself” she was very self-centered. I appreciated her concern for her sister and I know she was struggling to figure out life, and I definitely felt for her in those moments.

I will say dealing with Covid, sexuality, relationships, and home life all at one time isn’t easy. I do think I was hoping for a different ending, but not quite sure what that exactly was. With all this though, I think the author did a wonderful job of showcasing these struggles with a diverse set of characters.

This book really just took me for a ride. I loved the build up, the character development, and the writing. I would definitely read more from this author!

2.5 stars. This was messier than queer fat teens deserve. Recognize the HarperCollins Workers Union!

1/5 stars! Was really excited to read this story and enjoyed the premise. But I found some of the content to be really problematic. Baylee gives zero f*cks about COVID-19 restrictions and keeping herself and her family safe and acts incredibly dishonest and selfish throughout the story. I think this is bad content to be sharing with YA readers when we are still surviving an endemic. Appreciate the concept of sex-positivity, but this book was a huge miss for me.

I received an advance review copy for free through NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily

I really liked this one. It was realistic and had me hooked the entire time. This book made me see things I honestly never thought of in terms of the MC’s appearance. It was heartbreaking to feel the things she struggled with. The ending felt a little too convenient but I loved the book so much because it reflected the way teens make decisions. Sometimes those decisions aren’t the best but they determine how one approaches decisions in the future. I loved the book and definitely recommend others check it out.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC

I will be withholding my review until Harper gives their Harper Collins union workers a fair contract. Thank you again for the copy.

I think this book felt incredibly realistic and I appreciate that. Baylee is a teenager who has body issues and they are not glossed over or downplayed at all. She has messy relationships, both with her friends and romantic partners, and she struggles to see her own worth at times.

I think that the pandemic was also handled in a believable way. There was so much fear in those early days, and it might be triggering for some to remember how hopeless and apocalyptic everything felt, but this book serves as a fairly accurate time capsule for the spring of 2020.

Overall, I would give this book 4⭐️. I am very curious what the book was like before covid was added to the plot. I wonder if it would have gotten deeper with both of the relationships, or if there would be more consequences for Baylee. I do feel like I wanted more resolution, but that may just be me.

Thank you to HarperTeen and NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own.