review: Every Day by David Levithan

Every Day by David Levithan

August 28, 2012

Knopf Books for Young Readers

Young Adult | Magical Realism

Standalone (I think) 

Pages: 336

Source/Format: Netgalley/egalley

Rating: ★★★

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.

Every morning, A wakes in a different person’s body, a different person’s life. There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.
It’s all fine until the morning that 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 finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

With his new novel, David Levithan has pushed himself to new creative heights. He has written a captivating story that will fascinate readers as they begin to comprehend the complexities of life and love in A’s world, as A and Rhiannon seek to discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day.

REVIEW:

Every Day by David Levithan is my first Levithan book (I know, don’t judge) and well . . . I’m not really impressed.  While the writing style is gorgeous, and the story is okay, I am just not sure about this one. There’s nothing really “wow” about it for me.

A (who I am going to call a “he” for this review, for simplicity purposes) has his own personality, which was nice since he doesn’t have his own body. It made me think a little bit about that: are we who we are because of the body we are in, or are we who we are despite our body? Interesting thing to think about. 

Rihanna, the girl he falls in love with, was . . . okay. There was nothing special about her to me; she was just this timid and shy girl WHO HAS A BOYFRIEND and ends up falling for A because of his personality and not whatever body he was occupying. I liked those little bumps, because really: how would you react if the person you were in love with switched bodies every day? 

While this book made me think about life and how we view it, it also made me wonder about the world David Levithan was building. Are there more people like A? What happens to them? Why do they switch bodies every day? Why do the people they occupy not remember being occupied by a strange being? And I’m left with these questions because nothing is answered. And that ending? I’m pissed that this is a standalone. David Levithan has this book set up to be a wonderful start of a series and it’s a STANDALONE. (I’m pretty sure.) 

So you invest time in reading it and then you read that ending and you’ve wasted hours of your life. 

Maybe my expectations were too much for this book; maybe I thought it would be different and when it wasn’t, I was disappointed. That has happened before (with Velveteen; review coming in October.) but holy crapoly, was I not expecting this. 

I wish there was more of A knowing who he was, where he belongs in this world. Why he wakes up in a different body every day. At least let him meet someone just like him. I wish we saw more of the pressing matter of Nathan and the demon possessing case. 

I just wasn’t impressed with this one, plain and simple. I read it quickly, but at the end of the book I really didn’t feel any different. It didn’t impact me emotionally. I didn’t care for these characters. I just . . . ugh. This book is a total “meh” for me. I can see why some people will fall for this one, but I didn’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me either.

Nathan also emails me, as I knew he would. 

You can't leave now. I have more questions.

I don't have the heart to tell him that's the wrong way to think about the world. There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. 

The only way to survive is to let some of them go. 

p. 223, egalley 

(I know that quote kinda goes against my review, but I wouldn't have minded if I got some answers, but I didn't get any answers, but more questions built up.)

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