Saturday, May 25, 2013

Review: Every Day by David Levithan

Every Day by David Levithan Every Day
By David Levithan
Publisher:
Knopf Books for Young Readers

To Sum It Up:

For A, a new day means life in a new body. He never knows who he’ll be next; he could wake up as someone of any ethnicity, male or female. A has always tried to avoid interfering in the lives of his hosts, but that’s before he meets Rhiannon. While in the body of her boyfriend, Justin, A falls for her, and soon he’s risking exposing what he is to be with her. Someone already knows that A isn’t who he appears to be, though, and just might reveal A’s secret first.

Review:

I can’t think of any novel I’ve previously read that even comes close to the premise of Every Day. I love how it’s a fairly straightforward concept, yet there’s a multitude of directions to take it in. And David Levithan most definitely makes the most out of it.

The novel dives straight into the story without any preamble about why A changes bodies every day. It’s just a fact that has to be taken as is. Although I couldn’t help being curious about whether A was an alien or something of that sort, I found that I was okay with not having the details of A’s origins. Credit Levithan with pulling off this idea as though it’s a commonplace thing and could happen to anyone. Normally I would have taken issue with the lack of A’s background history, but my attention was too engaged in the stories of the people whose lives A experiences for a day to really notice.

We get to meet several characters through A’s eyes, characters who are given quite a lot of depth considering how short-lived A’s time is as each person. Never knowing who his next host will be, A is thrown into a variety of scenarios. The most heartbreaking for me was when he found himself in the life of a young woman named Kelsea who was planning to commit suicide. This presents one of the biggest challenges to A’s policy of minimizing his interference in the hosts’ lives. On the whole, I thought A was a principled character (I’ll get to the part where I felt he went astray in a bit.). In Kelsea’s case, A truly wants to help her, and he does what he can for her.

A enters a much grayer ethical zone where Rhiannon is concerned. During the time he spends as her boyfriend, Justin, A falls in love with her. Yup, it’s Insta-Love, but if you’re already rolling with the idea of A’s daily form shift, then you might as well go with this, too. That’s how I viewed the situation, anyway. So not only did Every Day get me to look past the protagonist’s missing backstory, but the book also convinced me to turn a mostly blind eye to Insta-Love. The novel was this good, at least to me.

Once A realizes how much Rhiannon means to him, seeing her again starts taking more and more priority over leaving a host’s life in the same order he first encountered it. I’d stop short of calling A reckless, but this certainly isn’t the same A from the book’s early chapters. I couldn’t really fault him for some of his actions, though, because the nature of his life makes it so hard to form relationships, especially long-term ones. That’s not even counting the gigantic hurdle of having to explain to someone what the dawn of a new day means for A. I did feel that this part of the novel, where A tries to stay connected with Rhiannon as much as possible, put the most strain on my suspension of disbelief. A just so happens to inhabit a succession of hosts who live within a reasonable distance of Rhiannon’s location. A brief mention is made of how A has to go on a long journey if that’s what the host does, but that did nothing to enlighten me about how A manages to remain fairly close to Rhiannon in the geographical sense. Considering everything about the novel that I did accept at face value, I feel like I’m nitpicking here. And I probably am.

Overall, Every Day was a unique, absorbing read with a very unconventional romance. The book sends a strong message about the importance of loving each other based on what’s inside our hearts and regardless of however we appear on the outside, a message that is resonant without sounding preachy or cheesy. I tend to read a lot of series; it was refreshing to read a standalone for a change, and an excellent standalone at that.

All in All:

Every Day could almost pass for a contemporary novel—A’s extra special circumstances aside. I’d wanted to read this for quite some time, and when I finally borrowed it from the library, I was not disappointed with it.

10 comments:

  1. I'm feeling so crappy right now for not having picked this one up sooner, especially considering it's been on my kindle for FOREVER.

    You make it sound so good! And the fact that you can overlook all the things you normally dislike just shows how powerful the book is!

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    1. If this hadn't been so well-written, I don't think I could have bought into it like I did. The prose really sold this for me.

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  2. I think it's hard for all of us to not dwell on "why is he/she like that?" But you really have to get past that, because that just isn't what the book is about. Very unique concept. Great review.

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    1. I'm glad I realized early on that the focus of the book wasn't on where A came from and what made the daily host change possible. If I hadn't put my questions aside, I wouldn't have enjoyed reading this nearly as much.

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  3. Great review, Lee! This sounds like my sort of read, thanks for sharing :)

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    1. It's so different from anything I've read, and I loved Levithan's writing. I hope you get to check it out, Katja!

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  4. Great review! It sounds really interesting! :)

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    1. It is! I was intrigued by the concept as soon as I read the synopsis, and I wasn't let down.

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  5. Well that's it, I'll have to give this one a chance hehe! I've been thinking it was more of a contemporary myself but now that I see it's more than that - I'm extremely curious!! Something like this, that almost reads as a contemp might be just what I need to start reading more of the genre! Plus I've heard so many amazing praise about the author :) Loved reading your review Lee, and thanks for adding yet another book to my ever-growing reading pile :D

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    1. I definitely need to read more of David Levithan's books. I loved Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, his co-write with Rachel Cohn. He's brilliant at mixing up genres with Every Day, making the book not quite a contemporary yet not quite a paranormal read, either.

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