*Winner, 2021 Independent Press Award, Teen*
*Gold Medal Winner, 2021 Readers' Favorite Awards, Young Adult - Coming of Age*
Teenage life (with a playlist). Nearly sixteen, Kila Lorens showers herself in music and lives in plush corduroys. She longs for the answers to this irritating trio of questions: When will she have her first kiss? Will Angus Lyr ever stop obsessi-texting Reese Seratine? And why did her former best friend, Brixton Kading, silently bow out of her life six months ago? The particulars of these unknowns—along with her mission to convince Maya Malta to share some sizeable news with a certain seventeen-year-old before he finds out from someone else—keep Kila’s eyes open at night.
But one late hour delivers something worth hiding: a private Nektir message from Timothy Cardiff, the tall, inky-haired enigma who rarely speaks in school, yet somehow morphs into Salt for Swordsmen’s frontman on the weekends. Amidst tandem listening and dizzying revelations, the two form an unlikely attachment. When their covert communication spills into the halls of Cypress High, they both wonder if this will be a short-lived or long-lasting entanglement.
Ethan Lorens—Kila’s cautious but optimistic older brother—mostly focuses on his new drums and his indie band’s potential. An after-school visit to Casper’s Music Underground presents some unexpected industry intel. Following years of hiatus, Emerald Rock plans to host another EmOpen. Casper encourages the boys to prepare for the contest, but Ethan, Brixton, and Angus wrestle with the group’s shortcomings. Could the young French chef they meet at The Hidden Meridian be the band’s missing link?
Sometimes dreams come out to play. Mixing Kila and Ethan’s friends together on a parentless weekend induces irreversible crushes, late-night courtship, and stinging heartache. With an elaborate, 67-song playlist to immerse you in every magnetic moment, you’ll experience the rush of Everything All At Once, the first book in the CHORDUROYS AND TOO MANY BOYS™ series.
"A LIGHT, FUN, FANTASTICALLY GRIPPING STORY OF YOUNG LOVE, MUSIC AND THE UPS AND TERRIBLE DOWNS OF HIGH SCHOOL. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!"
“CAYDEN WRITES SMOOTHLY, SHOWING A PARTICULAR GIFT FOR DIALOG, WHICH IS ESSENTIAL IN ANY BOOK ABOUT TEENAGERS WHO CUSTOMARILY SPEAK IN SECRET LANGUAGES AND CULTURE-SWATHED NUANCE.” –BARBARA BAMBERGER SCOTT, A WOMAN’S WRITE
“Everything All at Once is part of Ivy Cayden’s Chorduroys and Too Many Boys series. Here Cayden paints a fresh and interesting narrative portraying all the ups and downs of teenage life. It’s filled-to-the-brim with interesting characters and twisting plot developments. This riveting story follows our main character, Kila Lorens, and how she navigates her way through relationships and teenage life in general. Cayden paints a vivid and realistic picture of teenage life. The worries and trials and tribulations young people typically face are things often forgotten as we get older, like worrying about our first kiss, heartbreak, and losing friends. The book does a fantastic job of capturing the emotional turmoil of that time in our lives. Young people will undoubtedly find themselves relating to parts of this story, and adults will be treated to waves of embarrassing yet-somehow-comforting nostalgia.
Aspects of this book felt very personal and raw, cringy in a good way, but the nostalgia brought it back to being charming. I thoroughly enjoyed being thrown back into my younger years through this book. My favorite element of this book was the addition of an accompanying playlist; each song assigned to a part of the story. Alongside Cayden’s descriptive imagery and detail, the music added a fantastic depth to the events. I felt far more immersed and connected to the mood and the character’s conflicts while listening to the songs they were listening to in the story. All the songs were clearly selected carefully to fit the tone of the event, and they all fit perfectly. With Cayden’s great knowledge of music, hosting an indie music blog, I was not at all surprised to find so many fantastic hidden gems in this playlist. I truly adored this element of the book, alongside the story itself, because of how much more it added to it. This element really set it apart from other typical teen-fiction I’ve read in the past.
Everything All At Once is a charming and emotionally stirring novel. The immersive and relatable conflicts were so exciting and addictive that I found myself unable to put the book down! I would love to read more of Cayden’s work in the future.”
“Kila has everything a girl could want: A happy family, more than one best friend, a boy who adores her, and a killer playlist. Her only problem is that the boy she likes isn’t the one who wants her. There is also someone else who sparks her interest. How was she to know who is a contender for her heart? Maybe, just maybe, she really doesn’t know what her heart really wants or needs. As Kila struggles with indecision and unfair choices, she realizes that high school relationships are often made up of false charm and undetermined shifts in personality. It’s not all good and can be dangerous “dressed up in” vocals, making music the universal catalyst of life.
Everything All at Once by Ivy Cayden is aptly titled in this unique teen story of first love, first kisses, and appropriately manufactured musical interludes. Cayden presents a unique way to enjoy an already fun story. Throughout the text are highlighted song titles that, when downloaded, the reader is encouraged to activate for an interesting addition to the reading experience. Well-developed realistic characters share their musical interests to make this almost a dual plot, filled with age relatable symbolism and common teenage situations. As a great addition to a classroom or personal library, young adult readers will become enraptured with Everything All At Once while anxiously awaiting (as am I) the next in the series.”
“RELATABLE CHARACTERS RIDDLED WITH TEENAGE UNCERTAINTIES MAKE THIS A FUN, PAGE-TURNING READ.”
“THE FIRST BOOK IN THE CHORDUROYS AND TOO MANY BOYS SERIES, EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE LIVES UP TO ITS TITLE. IVY CAYDEN SPINS A WEB OF SECRET CRUSHES, STOLEN KISSES, AND LOVE TRIANGLES GALORE IN THIS YOUNG ADULT NOVEL, ALL WRAPPED UP BY A SPECIALIZED PLAYLIST CURATED BY THE AUTHOR AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BOOK.”
“BEING SOMEONE WHO SEARCHES THE SONGS MENTIONED IN STORIES, I LOVED THE CONCEPT OF EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE BY IVY CAYDEN, COMBINING A PLAYLIST WITH A STORYLINE SO THAT YOU CAN LISTEN ALONG WITH THE CHARACTERS.”
“ORIGINAL, ENTERTAINING AND MEMORABLE, EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE IS AN ESPECIALLY AND UNRESERVEDLY RECOMMENDED ADDITION TO MIDDLE SCHOOL, HIGH SCHOOL, AND COMMUNITY LIBRARY CONTEMPORARY YA FICTION COLLECTIONS FOR YOUNG READERS AGES 14-189.”
