Book Review: EVERY DAY by David Levithan

   

FACTS ABOUT THE BOOK

 

Title: every day

Author: David Levithan

Publisher: Ember

Price:  $9.99

Pages: 322 (+ 6 additional chapters in my copy)

Genre: Fiction

Year: 2012

 

 

 

BACK OF THE BOOK

 

I wake up.

 

Immediately, I have to figure out who I am. It's not just the body - opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I'm fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth. The body is the easiest thing to adjust to, if you're used to waking up in a new one each morning. It's the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp.

 

Every day I am someone else. I am myself - I know I am myself - but I am also someone else.

 

It has always been like this.

 

 

 

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

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

 

(source: Amazon)

 

 

 

MY THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK

I loved this book.

 

I started reading it yesterady and finished it today.

 

No matter what I did, there was always this urge in me to read on, and so I did.

 

It took me a sentence or not even that to get into the story - I was immediately soaked into it, which I definitely blame on David Levithan's captivating writing style. This book made me want to read so many more books by him.

 

This book was so beautifully and intensely written, right from the start and until the very end. I just loved all the important messages that David Levithan incorporated into this story and the many diverse characters that he gave a voice to in this book.

 

Although the concept of this book is fictional, it felt so extremely realistic and so close to reality and so easy to relate to. I was amazed by all the stories inside this book - which is also what kept me wanting to read on and on the most - the fact that each chapter promised a completely new story, an utterly new character with their very own story.

 

I initially wanted to finally read this book now because its movie adaption will be in cinemas pretty soon - but after I've read this masterpiece of a book, I'm not really sure whether I want to see the movie. This story just feels so perfect as a book and I think that watching it as a movie will be a totally different experience and I'm not sure whether I will enjoy it in the same way.

 

A just has this voice, this presence in the book, which shines through every character that A inhabits and I can't really imagine how that could come across on the screen .. I think that the movie will definitely be more like Rhiannon's experience of the whole story for the audience than A's as it was for the reader.

 

While I read this book, I knew that there was a sequel to it, called Another day, so I kinda had this in mind the whole time I was reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed the book but always kept thinking that I will be able to read on soon. But now I've discovered that Another day isn't really a sequel but a retelling from Rhiannon's point of view, which disappointed me a bit.

 

Although I really really enjoyed this story and also the connection between A and Rhiannon, I'm not too keen to read the story entirely from Rhiannon's point of view now..

Because what made this book so amazing and so fascinating to me was the constant newness of the chapters and the never-knowing what and who will come next.

 

The concept of the book just prevented this story from the slightest possibility of ever getting boring - which I just loved. There wasn't even a chance of this book ever getting boring - and if there was an unlikable character for one day, you just knew that you wouldn't have to deal with them for very long until the next one came.

 

What made this book so extraordinary was also the choice of characters that A inhabited. There was such a huge variety of personalities, sexualities, identities, looks, wealth and so on, and I was just so glued to the book to get to know all of these characters and to learn about their individual story. Personally, I was also very pleased to read about so many LGBTQ* characters and about the way in which A themself made it so very clear how unimportant and irrelevant gender and sex can actually be. I just loved that take on it and that the core story of the book didn't even have the aim to be a queer story, but that it nevertheless taught the reader so many elementary truths about what sexualities actually mean and what not.

 

 

CONCLUSION

Obviously, I am completely in love with this book and enjoyed it a lot. I can recommend it to literally everyone because it just tackles so many different stories and characters that everyone should be able to identify with it at at least some point. And its story is just so fascinatingly interesting and thrilling and - yeah, I just couldn't put it down and definitely didn't want to either.

This was just an utterly amazing read and I wish I'd come across such books more often.

 

 

 

RATING

I award this book with 5 out of 5 stars.