Every Day | David Levithan | Review

Every Day | David Levithan | Review

• Friday 31 January 2014

image via goodreads

Each morning, A wakes up in a different body. There’s never any warning about who it will be, but A is used to that. Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. 

And that’s fine – until A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because A has found someone he wants to be with – every day . . .

I’ve heard countless amounts of praise for David Levithan’s books and have meant to pick one up for ages, and I am SO glad that I picked up Every Day! Every Day is the tale of A, someone who jumps from body to body, day to day. A is not defined by gender, or sexuality, A just is.

I really enjoyed this book, but at times it didn’t seem very well thought out or the plot got a little confusing. A falls in love with Rhiannon really quickly, which you can sort of understand given his life, but what is much more surprising is how fast Rhiannon reciprocates. She hardly had any ‘freak out’ period, and as someone who is a firm believer in characters needing a ‘freak out’ period this bothered me. Also it raised a lot of questions about the precise nature of what A can do – they don’t entirely make sense beyond the simple notion of body jumping and if you have a tendency to over-think things that could ruin this book for you.

However, beyond these problems, Every Day is quite exceptional. The reader gets to glimpse a little bit of each of the different lives A gets to live each day – each so different: happy, touching, sad, harrowing, but each exceptional in an ordinary way. A touches each of these lives in a different way, some good, some not so.  A’s lives his life without being judgemental about much of the lives he inhibits, and without being overtly preachy teaches the reader a lot about acceptance. A person is not defined by the gender they are assigned, or the one that they choose. A person is not defined by their sexual orientation. A person is not defined by their body shape. A person is not defined by their lifestyle choices.

Ultimately, this is what Every Day is about, but that doesn't mean that Levithan forgoes the story to get his point across. It’s touching and I would encourage you to read it. 

This post was written by regular reviewer Kath, get to know her here.