A really interesting concept, that’s almost left undefined or fully described to allow the direct human experience to come through. So many questions!

Everything You Ever Wanted is a sci-fi book, not heavy on the 'sci-fi' part of it, meaning a beginner like me could read it easily :)

It's a book that explores many other issues through a sci-fi plot, like mental health, social media obsession, etc.

I liked that the book was thought provoking, and character heavy. Sometimes it was a bit slow, but overall I enjoyed the writing and the character development.
So, if you're looking for a social sci-fi, I'd recommend it.

Thanks a lot Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to read Everything You Ever Wanted from the moment I heard about it. It’s set in a slightly altered version of our reality in which a habitable planet, Nyx, has been discovered. Nyx is accessed via an underwater wormhole in the Pacific Ocean, and there’s no way back. The opening chapter quickly dispenses with these details before moving on to the key fact that the new planet is also to be home to a Big Brother-esque TV series called Life on Nyx. 100 citizens of Earth will be selected to go to Nyx and start a new, self-sufficient community, and it will all be streamed 24/7. Our protagonist, Iris, will become one of the ‘lucky’ few to be chosen.

‘Reality show on another planet’ is such an irresistible hook that, if someone had told me more than half the book would be about Iris’s pre-Nyx life in London, I might have been put off. Yet that’s what I ended up liking most about it. Sauma brings Iris to life so brilliantly that I felt like I knew her and I was her, simultaneously. This is likely by design – Iris’s whole existence is a melange of elements that will be familiar to most urban twenty/thirtysomethings – but it’s executed very well. In particular, her mental health difficulties are skilfully handled.

The London segments of Everything You Ever Wanted reminded me a lot of Will Wiles’ Plume, except instead of being an alcoholic, Iris is depressed. Where Jack has ‘the Need’, Iris has ‘the Smog’. (I imagined Iris wandering the same London as Jack; I could easily picture them crossing paths.) Both books skewer 21st-century office culture with a ruthless ease, and just as Wiles writes an excoriating, horribly accurate account of alcoholism, Sauma is terrifyingly precise about depression.

The folly in Iris’s thinking is clear: she believes a new start on Nyx can wipe her clean and thus eliminate the Smog. She wants to believe the problem stems from various trappings of modern life – an essentially meaningless job, the ready availability of drugs and alcohol, social media – and not, you know, her brain. Ironically, some of those things facilitate Iris’s path to Life on Nyx: instead of seeing a doctor or therapist, she self-medicates with drugs bought online, meaning it’s easy to lie her way through health questions when she’s interviewed (by an AI) for the show.

I loved reading about Iris pre-Nyx and I loved reading about Life on Nyx, so I powered through most of the book happily, savouring Sauma’s great eye for detail and spot-on dialogue. The reason my rating isn’t higher is a certain development towards the end. I have an inbuilt bias against this particular type of development, but also, in this case it doesn’t add anything to the story. Nevertheless, I thought the ending itself was really strong, delivering a realistic denouement while preserving an inkling of hope.

Iris, a woman in her twenties living in London, auditions to move to another planet to participate in an experiment

It was the blurb quote from Sharlene Teo that attracted me to Everything You Ever Wanted, as well as the synopsis - Iris, a woman in her late 20s from London, auditions to move to another planet - Nyx - to participate in an experiment which will be streamed back to earth like a sort of Big Brother style reality tv show (sans challenges).

Unfortunately, however, the most engaging parts of the narrative were the flashbacks which take place before Iris leaves earth. We see Iris depressed, struggling to connect with people around her and doing a job she doesn't seem to have any passion for. She has a relationship with a colleague and parties a lot in attempts to fill the void she feels in her life.

The latter parts of the book focus only on Iris's time on Nyx and the events that unfold there. To say much more would get spoiler-y, but I found the scenes on Nyx boring and under explored. This setting had so much potential but fell flat for me, bordering on dull - I could sum up in a few sentences what took place over 50+ pages, and none of the themes were explored to nearly half the extent that they could have been.

The beginning portion of this was really excellent, but the format is quite messed up when reading on an e-reader - to the extent that sentences are in wrong pages and repeated - so I’m not sure if I’m missing anything when reading. Such a shame as I was really enjoying.

**update: I could NOT stop thinking about this book so I ploughed through the rough formatting. It’s insanely good - one of those books where you miss reading it when you have to do other things. So excellent, I’m a big fan.

I wasn't sure if I would get on with this book, because of the sci-fi element, but I was intrigued by the description.

Everything You Ever Wanted is about a woman called Iris, who, having become disillusioned with her life, decides to enter a competition to leave Earth forever and live on a planet called Nyx. Having experienced anxiety and depression for most of her life, Iris has many unresolved emotional issues, which are explored throughout.

This book was easy to read and quite compelling. I liked Iris as a character and was rooting for her to find her meaning on Nyx. I was also pleased that the sci-fi aspect wasn't particularly pronounced and instead focussed on exploring Iris's thoughts and memories. Unfortunately I was disappointed that some of the other characters and relationships felt under-developed, though this might have been a comment on depression and Iris's sense of distance and isolation.

Overall this was an interesting character study, viewed through the lens of mental health in modern day life. For this reason, though I would recommend it to other readers, I would add a trigger warning for suicide.

Thank you to Penguin UK and to NetGalley, who provided me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was not the sort of book I would normally read. I really enjoyed it, I could imagine this quite easily as a film. Great characterisation, I thought the description of the ‘smog’ and the overwhelming sadness she felt was very evocative. I so wanted her to feel better. I’ll recommend this to others.

Luiza Sauma's second novel focuses on Iris, in her late twenties, living in London, and alienated by her job producing digital content for brand campaigns that she doesn't understand. Having suffered from clinical depression for much of her life, or what she calls 'the smog', Iris is intrigued by the opportunity to apply to live on a distant planet, Nyx, which promises a return to the old days of traditional community living, with no social media. In its first two-thirds, Everything You Ever Wanted switches between Iris's old life in London, examining why she decided to go to Nyx, and her new life off-world, before focusing entirely on Nyx in its final chapters.

Everything You Ever Wanted is a missed opportunity. The concept is great, and implies that Sauma will be examining some of our lazy assumptions about life without social media, challenging the idea that everything was better in the 'good old days'. However, both strands of Iris's life turn out to be equally horrible, principally because of Iris herself; she's a very unsympathetic protagonist, seemingly unable to make any kind of effort to build the kind of life she wants. I understand that she's mentally unwell, but in that case, perhaps her struggle with depression shouldn't have been included, as it would have allowed Sauma to properly grapple with questions about community.

The balance of the book is also off; there's far too many pages wasted on how much Iris hates hashtags, and not nearly enough space given to life on Nyx. As a result, the world-building on Nyx is very poor. Intriguing plot elements about what's really going on in the colony are never resolved - for example, the hint that the volunteers aren't really on another planet at all, and all of this is a social experiment. The ending is so rushed - I felt like Sauma was trying to get at something like the wonderful climax of Antonia Honeywell's dystopian novel The Ship, but it doesn't feel earnt.

Perhaps there's another way to read Everything You Ever Wanted: that it's really a book about depression and suicidal ideation, and that Nyx is merely a metaphor for the mental state of people with this illness, separating themselves from the rest of the world and from those who love them. However, because interacting with people in the 'normal world' is portrayed as so meaningless (even face-to-face interaction in the pub is portrayed negatively) it doesn't work on this level either. While this is an easy enough read, it won't satisfy either SF fans or those looking for an exploration of emotional connection. Two and a half stars. #notforme

Everything You Ever Wanted is a novel about escape, sometimes eerie and sometimes heartbreaking as it charts finding a new life on a new planet. Iris works in London creating digital content, hiding her depression and anxiety, trapping in after work drinks and strategy meetings. The Life on Nyx programme sounds both insane and enticing: 100 people moving to another planet, free from social media and employment and everything else, but with the caveat that you can't come back. And with it, maybe Iris has found her way out.

The combination of a detailed and powerful account of difficulties in modern life with an uncanny escape narrative about the failings of a space utopia works strangely well. The point at which these parts collide—where Iris chooses to leave her old life for a new one—is emotional, working on both the literal narrative level (another planet over dealing with your issues) and a more metaphorical one. The Nyx parts were better than expected for someone who isn't big on sci-fi, much more focused on Iris' perspective and the realities of her choice than the practicalities of them being there.

Everything You Ever Wanted takes a story of youthful burnout and mental health issues and combines it with light sci-fi and a sharp look at social media obsession. The result is a novel in an engrossing style that draws you into the central character's mindset, with a narrative that keeps pushing forward.