Amandla Stenberg Is Taking ANOTHER YA Novel to the Big Screen

Photo: Instagram (@amandlastenberg)

So in what is basically the BEST news ever, Nicola Yoon’s debut novel, “Everything, Everything,” is set to star bi icon and #everythinggoals Amandla Stenberg.

We. Can’t. Wait.

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Released last year, the novel centers around a teenager named Madeline who is majorly allergic to all that is the outside world and, as a result, can’t leave the house. Like, ever. It’s a book worth reading not just becaue it sounds straight up incredible (seriously, what a grabbing premise), but because Nicola Yoon, its author, is also rad AF. Not only is she a member of We Need Diverse Books, but she’s a major advocate for diversity.

Plus, she has such important things to say, and we love supporting people doing the often exhausting, but beyond necessary work of pushing for diversity in the mainstream. It's difficult to be a black woman in the world of publishing, and it's doubly risky to speak out about issues of diversity, but Yoon is taking that risk because our world is loaded with diversity, and our media should illustrate that.

"I always think, 'If Harry Potter had been black, that would have been so cool!' If he had been gay, that would have been fantastic. Does the story really change that much in a significant way? Think of how many people would have seen that. That would have been awesome."

Onto Stenberg. We love her. We just, we do, she has our heart, she has our support, and for me as a queer woman of color, she is the closest I could have ever imagined to an icon. I never thought I’d see a queer woman of color doing *so* well, and though she’s faced undeniable, horrifying backlash (even getting chased off of Tumblr by trolls, because people are terrible) she’s really just so important.

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She’s also talented as hell, which proves once again to anyone who needed to hear it that it’s not just straight white folks who can be talented. We all can. Even if we’re black, even if we’re mixed, even if we’re queer.

We’re important, and we deserve to see ourselves in our own stories.

To be directed by Stella Meghie, “Everything, Everything,” is sure to be a stunner on the big screen, and we cannot WAIT to see it all unfold.