Review: Every Day - David Levithan

Every Day
David Levithan
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Word Rating: Whoa.
On Goodreads

Do you ever read a book and it leaves you with so much to think about but at the same time you can sum it up in just one word? For this book, that word is whoa. I have so much I want to say about Every Day but at the same time I have no idea how to get it out of me because it's all twisting around in my gut and most of it is feelings and very few of it is words but I will try.

Okay. Here goes.

This book seems to have formed a habit of doing things to me in opposites. Earlier I said it gave me both much to think about but also could be summed up in just the one word. Now, I'm saying that it took me by surprise and it didn't take me by surprise. It moved quickly and it moved slowly. I'm not sure how it managed to do these things but I'm sure that it worked it its favor, so props to David Levithan for harvesting the writing prowess of a champion.

The book was about A, who woke up in a different body every day. Sometimes A is a boy, sometimes a girl. As the book goes on, we learn more and more about the "rules" of A's moving around. A has never inhabited the same body twice. A doesn't identify with any gender. A always wakes up in a body roughly the same age, so as an infant, this was A's life too and A only realized something was strange at around age 5, when other children would speak of "tomorrow." A only moves bodied within the local area. If A is in New York City, A will wake up in NYC bodies until someone hops on a plane to California, which is when A will wake up in bodies in that immediate circle. It isn't clear exactly how far this radius extends but A is never more than a few hours from the last body. A can access memories from the body and tries to get through the day as normal and then go to the next one. That is, until A meets Rhiannon and then falls in love with her.

Okay, so now that we've got a little background here I'm going to interject with the few bits that didn't work for me and why I give this book 4.5 stars instead of 5. The explanation I gave above is pretty much all we get about A's state of existence. I don't want to spoil anything but something does come up later in the book about others like him and being able to stay longer than a day but it isn't explored because A does not want to explore it. I understand that with a first person narration we are only going to know what the narrator know and what he chooses to learn but I wish Levithan delved more into the reasoning/logic/science/magic/whatever behind A's existence. I was left with a lot of questions about how these types of beings exist. Are they devils, like one of the characters suggests? Are they types of humans or something more? There was a lot that could have been explored with this that just wasn't and I really wish it had been. I know David Levithan has the skills and the ability to come up with something genius as an explanation or elaboration and I really wish he had. Okay, that's my main problem with the book and that's honestly the only negative thing I have to say about it, and it isn't even really "negative," it's just me being a curious reader.

On to why I love the book so much.

Before A falls in love with Rhiannon, everything is systematic. A's routine is down to a science. After Rhiannon comes into the picture, all the rules and regulations fall to pieces. One of the things I really liked that David Levithan did was that he made A so dynamic. For someone who isn't really there at all, A has many sides. Not all of them were good. In fact, a lot of the time I didn't like A. I thought that A was often selfish and reckless and ridiculous and unreasonable. Other times I thought A was thoughtful and deep and deserved to be with Rhiannon. I wanted to know how it would end and what would happen and if what I knew deep in my heart was true. I also really liked the storyline with Nathan and I thought it was an interesting way to explore the character of A and it would have been an interesting gateway to explore creatures like A even further.

I was satisfied with the ending. Without spoiling anything I want to say that at first, I thought it was a bit of a cop-out ending. That everything was a bit too perfect and worked out too well, even though it wasn't traditionally happy. And then I understood that it wasn't perfect. That such a big sacrifice had been made. That work was going to have to be done and that love was being shown in the best way they both knew how. And it was beautiful.

Overall, this book left me reeling with all the emotions it put me through. I thought it was a phenomenal read and I would definitely recommend it to everyone.

- Noor

How would you react if you woke up in a different body?
Let us know in the comments!