Very new age and self deprecating feminist novel. It’s definitely very progressive and there were a lot of intellectual discussions throughout, but maybe I’m not smart enough to understand all of it and it left me confused a lot of times.

I still think you should give it a try if you are interested in feminist YA. Maybe it just wasn’t exactly for me. ( )

Flora is a very bright student, a feminist, a fan of fashion and she's fallen in love for the first time with Elijah. This leads her to enroll in a "radically inclusive" school. I'm glad the author used those words, I'd have had a hard time describing it.

This is a school that helps teach its students to be inclusive to everyone.
Great plan but sometimes it results in some really over the top ideas that would drive even the most "radically inclusive" a bit crazy. For example, there's a teenager that pees in her yard.

When Flora moves into one of the little shacks on campus, she feels like she's sticking out like a sore thumb. If you're someone that loves fashion, how do you define yourself in an environment where compliments about physical appearance and clothing is actually discouraged. (Again, a nice enough concept, but when it actually results in making someone uncomfortable it's not totally working)

I loved the epistolary style of writing. When I heard that was the book's format, I ordered it asap. I really enjoy that style of writing.
This book was told through letters, diary entries and the occasional emails.

I found this book to be super unique. I didn't actually know it was about a teenager when I bought it, I misunderstood at first that it was about two teachers who meet at school. But I'm glad I didn't know. It's really more of a universal story about someone trying to understand themselves and find their place in the world.
It got a little off course after Elijah's reappearance but maybe it's something that needed to happen to help Flora realize she shouldn't let anyone else define her. ( )

So not what I was expecting! At first glance, I didn't think I could like a story about a privileged girl in a school where they talk about social constructs, feminism, and the like but I really got into Flora's life. She was this smart rich girl that loved fashion and was infatuated with an older boy. She learned so much about herself that she moved beyond that image. Very unexpectedly lovely and some phenomenal writing.

Flora becomes a fashion icon when she meets this older boy who's tutoring her and happens to be popular online for his photography. ... An older boy taking pictures of a girl that's younger than him and highly impressionable... yeah if that isn't a bad sign for what's to come for Flora, I don't know what is... Anyways, she's so enamored by his charm that she decides it's a good idea to follow him to a new school she really doesn't know too much about because if she did, she would have never gone there. The boarding school is basically like living Amish, very progressive, independent, but not down with anything that makes Flora, Flora. Needless to say, she has a tough time fitting in and worse of all, Elijah, our charming photographer, never shows up. Ah, how she learns so much about Elijah and his ways. Oh, how I wanted to strangle that man child.

I enjoyed that the writing was comprised of emails, journal entries, letters, and website articles. It's not something you read everyday. Actually, nothing about this story was anything like I've ever read or have ever seen being marketed for YA before. There's something about this unique story that drew me in. The characters, Flora's conflicts, and the way Flora learned so much about herself or at least started to explore who she is surprised me. It's a very unexpectedly likable read. Honestly, I've been so tired of the same old thing in YA where the mysterious boy turns up and is the only one the MC can talk to and blah, blah, blah. Everything Must Go was funny and refreshing. It did end strangely but I felt like I went on a journey with Flora and that's kind of what you want when you read a book. This is Davis' first book so I'm expecting a lot more great reads from her in the future. ( )

Thanks to Goodreads and the publisher for a free copy of Everything Must Go!

In an effort to make a boy fall in love with her, Flora transfers from her high school to a small Quaker school. Fashion savvy, and model behind a popular fashion blog, she's suddenly in a world where comments on physical appearance are disallowed, lentil loaf is a common meal, and professors send emails about the experience of giving birth in a garden. Culture shock, to say the last.

As she makes her way through her first year, she comes up hard against issues of identity, authenticity, materialism, friendship, and consent. Readers piece together her story through emails, journal entries, letters, assignments, and more.

This is one of my favourite kinds of books -- serious issues told with much humour and snark. (The Marxist roommate/Planned Parenthood line, anyone?) There's a lot of thought-provoking content, too. A skewering of the idea that authenticity and fashion are somehow natural enemies to each other. A critique of apparently feminist publications that don't actually respect people's boundaries. And the author clearly knows her stuff when it comes to gender issues and alternative private schools.

There are a couple of things that didn't sit as well with me -- an infuriatingly neglectful lesbian mom, throwaway jokes about reusable menstrual products, jabs at gender-neutral childraising. These caught me a bit by surprise in a book that otherwise seemed very feminist. Having said that, were they consistent for Flora's narrative? Of a relatively privileged girl who probably has never seen a cloth pad in her life? Absolutely.

So, I guess the overall point is, if you're into Jane Eyre, books told in letters, feminism, and fashion, give this one a shot. ( )

A young adult novel geared to a high school aged (girls) crowd. The heroine (Flora) is smitten by an artist friend to the point that she attends a smell prep school that he went to years before. They he meet when he chooses her as a clothes model for fashion website that goes viral. At the new school she is an outcast at first but later through her own creativity she becomes an artist in her own right. The book has lots of emails, letters and excerpts from other media. I think that the book will be quite popular with the audience for which it was intended. ( )