Friday 30 August 2013

Every Day - David Levithan


Pages: 371
Publisher: Electric Monkey
Release Date: 29th August 2013
Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Boy Meets Boy, The Realm of Possibility, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn), Are We There Yet?, Wide Awake, Naomi & Eli’s No-Kiss List (with Rachel Cohn), Love is the Higher Law, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green), The Lover’s Dictionary, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (with Rachel Cohn), Invisibility (with Andrea Cremer), Two Boys Kissing

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.

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...

With every book of David Levithan’s that I read, I fall more and more in love with his writing, his ideas and his stories. Every Day was no exception.

There’s no doubt that Every Day is beautifully and thoughtfully written. There aren’t many protagonists that usually stand up to the weight of ideas and thought processes that Levithan doles out, but as usual, A did it perfectly. He is, after all, a soul and a mind, not a body. It made me think in a way I had never before: you are not your body. Your body is a casing; a way of presenting yourself to the world; the thing that defines how you will be viewed by the world, regardless of what lies underneath. It’s obviously something that you know but it’s a hard concept to grasp and really see until reading A’s story.

I loved the sense that each day is a single snapshot, to be endured or to be savoured; it’s either too long or too short. It made me reflect on my own days and I continually wish each one away, minute by minute to get to the end of my shift at work. It’ a depressing ways to spend your days, especially in comparison to A. A lives a different life in each day and spends nearly every day in the second half of the novel feeding his love for Rhiannon and trying to find a way to make it work.

One of the standout elements of Every Day is something that I’ve come to expect from David Levithan: a strong but still understated view of gender and sexuality. A is genderless; identifying as either a boy or a girl, depending on which body A appeared in that day. A doesn’t fall in love with girls or with boys, but with personalities; love is love. I really liked the way that Rhiannon struggled with this as she was so used to the more rigid and socially conforming view of gender and sexuality. It added a realistic and genuine edge to a novel that could have been ridiculous if written by anyone other than David Levithan.

I loved Every Day and already looking forward to seeking out more of David Levithan’s novels. It’s so good to fall in love with an author who has a backlist...


Thanks to Electric Monkey for sending me a copy to review.

Sophie

8 comments:

  1. I bought Every Day yesterday and now I'm glad I did! Great review and thanks for sharing! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I won a copy of this earlier and think it looks really good. I've only read one book by David Levithan before so am looking forward to reading something else.

    Great review, Sophie!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yay I'm so glad you liked it! I'm trying to read his backlist of books but there are so many! I agree with what you said about savouring every moment; its so easy to overlook the little things :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm keeping this book to read until I have more time to savour it. It sounds amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love the sound of this one. I'm the same as Clover, though - saving it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This novel was very well written. I was surprised how sentimental it was in the most intriguing way. Last chapter really left an impact. I strongly recommend this novel!

    Charmaine Smith (View information about All Inclusive Bear Tour Packages)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well, I like the quote "You are not your body. Your body is a casing. a way of presenting yourself to the world". Everyone should be like that in a way of looking at other people.

    Inspiring so much. I wanna be a good writer and hope for my own book published next year.

    grammar bahasa inggris

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hrmm that was weird, my comment got eaten. Anyway I wanted to say that it's nice to know that someone else also mentioned this as I had trouble finding the same info elsewhere. This was the first place that told me the answer. Thanks.
    Harga Acer Terbaru | Cari uang lewat facebook tanpa modal

    ReplyDelete

Leave a message, I'd love to hear from you!