Every Day

Every Day has an interesting premise, in that its narrator, A, wakes up every day in someone else's body. Someone different every day. Someone his own age. Although you can't be sure "his" is the correct pronoun to use. A doesn't have his own body. A isn't even his name; its just what he decided to call himself. One day he wakes up as Justin, and over the course of his day inhabiting Justin's body, he falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon. He has never met a girl like her, never had a day like the day they share. And unlike every other day of his sixteen years, when he wakes up in a new body, he finds a way to meet Rhiannon again. And again. Eventually he tells her his story. The first time he has ever told anyone his story. show more Because he has fallen in love with her.

This storyline I enjoyed. Even when he wakes up as a girl. As a lesbian. A gay guy. Trans. The storyline remains "how does he build a relationship with Rhiannon when every day he wakes up in a new body, one that often doesn't mesh with her needs and desires?" My hardcover copy is 324 pages long. I enjoyed all but the last ten, when Every Day loses me in its unsatisfying ending as A introduces Rhiannon to the boy he's inhabiting this last day, Alexander, then leaves and never contacts her again because he is trapped in this cycle and there is no way for them to be together. After which the book ends, rather than concludes.

I'm not sure what ending would change my sense of disappointment. It's really the only ending that works, given A's predicament. But the lack of closure is unfulfilling.

P.S. Only after writing this review did I see that Every Day is part of a series. When I finished reading it, I thought the story needed to continue. Unfortunately, David Levithan decided to continue it in Another Day and Someday rather than work out a satisfactory conclusion in Every Day. show less

The Hulk ride at Universal Orlando is different from your typical roller coaster. Instead of that gradual climb, where anxiety and readiness builds, anticipating what is to come, the Hulk shoots its riders immediately into the thrill, no chance to prepare themselves for the adventure ahead. The same should be said about Every Day by David Levithan. Instead of the usual course a novel takes, where a reader gets to know characters and setting before plot takes over, Levithan starts off with a bang, which makes sense as one reads the novel and understands the unusual premise.

Each day, every day, A becomes another person. He steps into the body and life of someone else who already has one. It could be a girl or a boy, someone in love, show more someone depressed, someone hooked on drugs, someone happy. The reader never knows – A never knows what’s next. When we first meet A, he steps into the body of a young man who has a girlfriend that he really doesn’t appreciate or treat well; but A is hooked and we’re hooked, and the story is about how A deals with this seemingly quick attraction to someone he’s just met. As I read this book, unsure about the abrupt beginning, I realized that for A, each day has to be seized and taken advantage of.

The real challenge facing Levithan with this concept is how to draw it to a conclusion when in A’s life, there may never be one. With respect for his character and his premise, he does just that. Exciting, creative, scary and thrilling, Every Day makes us think about who we are and what life would be like if we weren’t. show less

This novel is told from the perspective of a person – or perhaps just a consciousness – named A who awakes each morning occupying the body of a different person. Over the years, A has come up with practices and ethics to not interfere in the lives of the bodies occupied, but this all changes at the age of 16 when A becomes obsessed with a girl named Rhiannon. A reveals the secret identity to Rhiannon and tries to find some way to maintain a relationship. Along the way we get sympathetic vignettes glimpsing into the lives of several teenagers each facing their own joys and struggles. Levithan’s writing is well-done and the story works both as ripping good yarn and as metaphor for the teenagers’ search for identity.

My aunt and I recently went to the 2012 National Book Festival in DC, and during the trip, I talked to her about the authors I wanted to see. I mentioned David Levithan and that I had just started to read Every Day. My aunt said, “Oh, it sounds interesting. I’ll have to check it out.” And I replied, “The premise should not logistically work but oh my god it does and it’s brilliant.” Yes, there were moments when my brain stopped to ask how this should actually work, but it’s just so well done, I kicked my brain and carried on.

And to be fair, I did knock the premise of the book at first, mostly because I’m a little tired of “My life is mundane (even by fantastical standards) but LO I HAVE MET [LOVE INTEREST] AND MY LIFE show more IS CHANGED SUNSHINE SPARKLES AND RAINBOWS.” But when it’s well-done, I can roll with it, and that is exactly what Levithan does. I liked that A has questioned the implications of what they do even if they don’t really influence the actions of the person they’re inhibiting at the moment. (Note: It is really hard not to describe A with specific gender pronouns. Just saying.) I also loved that A’s had to grapple with the fact that they don’t get a ‘tomorrow’ before, and that meeting Rhiannon just brings that idea up again. And I loved that the whole conflict is summed up so perfectly by using a line from “Running Up That Hill” (a song I love btw) and it just fits so well into the whole book and such a fantastic metaphor.

A could have been a frustrating character in that they don’t really have a set personality—not that A takes on the full personality whatever person they’re inhibiting, but A doesn’t really define themselves by being just one thing. I liked that even though a large part of A’s development is that they can make a difference in the lives they inhibit, particularly with Kelsea, but it never feels too preachy or overstated. I liked that A generally does accept the bodies they wake up in and just rolls with the punches. The only time I had an issue with that is when A wakes up in the body of an overweight boy and freaks out about “Omg I’m so disgusting I can’t let Rhiannon see me like this” and that whole day comes off as pitying that boy. It felt a little too fat-shaming to me. But I did like that A has to deal with the physical and mental problems of each person they inhibit—the whole day with Kelsea being my standout. It takes a lot to deal with that kind of depression and just how A and Rhiannon deal with it…heart-breaking. I loved that A gets confronted with their own perception of how people can be. This shows up more whenever A confronts Rhiannon about how her boyfriend treats her, and Rhiannon flat-out says that A’s got a biased perception of the situation.

I really liked Rhiannon. She felt like a normal girl, not a free spirit or a popular person or emo kid, just normal. And she’s caught in between a boyfriend with whom all the passion has kinda dimmed and some kid who’s experiencing new things every day. I liked that she genuinely cares about people, like when she checks up on some of the other teens A’s gone into to see if they’re doing all right. I even liked that she still loves Justin and calls A out on their biased opinion of Justin being a douchebag. (Well, Justin is but not all the time. That definitely felt realistic.) Rhiannon could have been too goody-two-shoes Mary Sue, but she never falls into that role.

And from what we did get of the other kids, I really liked them. Loved Nathan—he’s not the only one A uses in order to see Rhiannon, but he’s the one who gets the brunt of the effects. And I liked that he’s pissed off about it, and does confront A about what happened. Nathan’s reasoning of what happened feels a little too fantastical, but it felt like a logical leaped conclusion, and I also liked that even Nathan has to reconcile his ideas of what happened that day with A’s reasons. I loved the little glimpses we got into everyone’s lives, even if we never got the sense of their personalities. It’s especially interesting when A runs into their previous bodies and gets to see the reactions to their missing days. And I liked that there’s a hint that A isn’t the only person who jumps. It’s not brought out in too much detail, but I liked that we got to see that A isn’t an anomaly.

This is a book that could have failed if anyone else had written it, if the focus was too narrow (see my aforementioned misgiving), if A was too bland or too snarky or had too much personality—there’s a lot of what ifs. But Levithan manages to take a premise that’s complicated and raises too many questions and turns it into this beautiful novel and just…I can’t say enough. Definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year. show less

Every morning, A wakes up in a different body. For a book whose main character has no gender, no family, no possibility of creating a future, the story is very much about these things, and what defines who a person is. I don't want to give away much more than that, because uncovering how it is possible to create a story around such a character is part of the fun of this book.

Levithan does a great job offering a progressive view of gender and sexuality, however towards the end of the book, it starts feeling a bit forced and preachy. For younger readers, though, I love the idea of introducing the concept of falling in love with a person, not influenced by their body or their past or their genitalia.

Much like Rebecca Stead's When You show more Reach Me, I think this book would appeal to a really broad range of readers, from those who prefer realistic fiction/romances, to those who are interested in sci fi and fantasy. Because of the frank discussions of teen sex and alcohol use, I would recommend this for ages 13 and up. show less

The “big idea” behind this tender and sweet YA novel is a grand allegory for adolescence: no teenager—no matter how seemingly well adjusted, smart, popular, ambitious, sociable, or self-aware—ever feels fully comfortable in his/her skin. No teenager ever feels as if he/she belongs, because adolescence is a period of constant change, constant development, constant not-ever-knowing-if-what-you-think-you-know-is-actually-true-or-real-or-genuine. Because adolescence is a time of perpetual becoming. And in this novel, Levithan extends that idea into the driving force for the protagonist’s life—what life would be like if you woke up every morning as a different person.

A, the first-person narrator, lives such a life. Each day, A show more wakes up in the body of a different 16 year-old. Every aspect of the host’s identity is fair game—A might be gay, straight, bi, black, white, Asian, athletic, obese, wealthy, middle-class, poor, addicted to drugs, meticulously neat, an academic overachiever, a metalhead, or any combination of these attributes. At the core of A’s identity, however, is his/her self-awareness. A always knows that he/she is never him/herself.

This premise is ripe with potential for exploring the idea of adolescent identity, so I suppose I was somewhat disappointed that Levithan chose to contextualize this profound issue within the narrative of an obvious adolescent preoccupation—A’s quest for love. You see, despite A’s resignation to his/her impermanent existent and A’s commitment to not exerting any kind of consequential impact on the lives of those whose bodies he/she inhabits, A falls madly in love with Rhiannon. I suspect that the argument can be made that the quest for love is a quintessential adolescent concern and that A’s near-obsession with Rhiannon and A’s goal of finding some way to make their love last perfectly epitomizes the very core of adolescent existence—but I can’t help feeling that this novel merely scratches the surface of adolescent anxiety.

Overall, the underlying premise of “Every Day” is an engaging gimmick, and the book itself is an enjoyable read—with a very poignant and touching conclusion. show less

See full review @ The Indigo Quill

I had seen this book on the end caps at Barnes & Noble all year long. The premise sounded highly intriguing: undefined wandering soul travels from body to body every single day and never repeats the same person twice. One day, they awake in some dude's body and fall obsessively in love with his girlfriend, and thus, the plot thickens.

The wandering soul calls themselves A, and the girl's name is Rhiannon. The fascinating part about this whole thing is that A has no consistency. A is not defined by their gender, hair, eyes, height, or anything else. A can't even have a cell phone number because there's no way for them to keep track of it. The only way to reach Rhiannon is email.

Until this point, A just show more went through motions trying to give their host another normal day so it wouldn't be suspected that they had basically been "possessed" for 24 hours. However, once Rhiannon enters the picture, things change, and A is no longer satisfied with the inconsistency.

Aside from the fact that it's really hard not to use pronouns while talking about this book, it was incredibly interesting to step outside of societal roles and experience the world from the point of view of someone who was first of all, gender neutral, but also had to live a life with no true stability. It raises a lot of interesting questions, such as: What makes a person? Is it the way they look, the family they are raised in, the kind of trouble the stay in or out of? Is it their addictions, depression, lack of self control? And what is love? Can you truly love a person if their image changes every day? Is physical attraction and familiarity as important to loving someone as we think it is, or is it actually a supernatural occurrence between two souls? This book really makes you think.

I liked how Levithan chose to put the reader into the minds and bodies of different types of people. He communicated the thoughts and feelings of people who struggle with drugs, suicidal thoughts, obesity, and even those who live sheltered lives. In my opinion, it was a great opportunity to cover such subjects and lifestyles. And it's entirely realistic that A would wake up dealing with people who were experiencing these things. It added to the story so we weren't just reading about his obsession with Rhiannon the whole time.

It seems a handful of people were completely disgusted with this book and felt like A violated other people's lives (and this is kind of a spoiler, so beware). Honestly, when I saw the reviews I thought A went "too far" with Rhiannon or something, but they didn't. If you think about it, what would you do in that situation? 16 years of never having your own life. Of never being surrounded by people who love and know you. You are always a stranger, and you are always different. Every single day for 16 years, you're alive, but it's like you're a ghost because no one knows that you exist. What would you do?? I'm surprised they made it 16 years! You have to have some inhumane amount of maturity and self-control to continue living like you were never even born, especially when love is mixed in the picture. I probably would've liked this book less if A was given the supernatural ability to just "respect" their owners. That would have made a really boring book, too.

The only major thing that I did not like about this book, was that although it had a lot of interesting things to say about gender-neutrality, there were moments I felt like the author was trying to force their opinion at the reader by A forcing their way of thinking toward Rhiannon. When Rhiannon was having trouble accepting that A was neither male nor female, A would think things like "so we need to fix her way of thinking." It's one thing to want her to accept gender neutrality, but it's another to basically say something is wrong for a straight person to be straight and want to continue being straight. That's that same as all the controversy of trying to force homosexuals to be straight, so I feel like Levithan missed the mark here. And it wasn't done very well, either...because I felt like I wasn't reading the story at that point. It just felt like the author's opinion.

So altogether, I thought this book was absolutely amazing. It's definitely a fresh premise that offers a lot of deep thinking and perspective. It's also a very easy and fast read.

I was doing a little research and it looks like Levithan might be releasing a second book from Rhiannon's perspective. There's a lot of controversy as to whether this is a good thing or not, but I guess we'll see! show less