Review: Every Day

Every Day by David Levithan

"If you want to live within your own truth, you have to choose to go through the initially painful and ultimately comforting process of finding it."

"A" has no body, and instead wakes up every morning in a different one. There is no predicting which body A will be in except that they are always the age A would have been and always geographically near where the last one was. A has complete control over that body for the day and even has access to all the persons memories allowing for as "normal" of a day as possible. But then, A wakes up as Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend Rhiannon.


The ultimate question remains...Can love conquer all?

Like all of Levithan's novels, Every Day is rich with wisdom and beautifully written prose. It is the type of novel to savor. The language is rich yet completely embraceable to the modern reader. 

Besides just the story of love, this story examines people and their connection to life and to one another. Have you ever tried to talk about someone without using their gender, it's harder than you might imagine. That is how it has been discussing A. You cannot use him or her, he or she. It really changes how gender is viewed. Watching Rhiannon interact with A in different genders, sizes and shapes further examines the different ways we treat people based on what we know about them visually. Also, A examines different lives and how different people see the world. A describes this once to Rhiannon explaining that the color blue looks different through different eyes. Isn't that a wild concept to imagine? But it is true, tastes, smells and sights would be different to everyone.

So much of what we think about a person, how we react to them, how we interact with them is based on the way they present themselves visually. We treat men different than women, the old different than the young, someone professional differently than someone who is sloppy, the fat different than the thin, the ugly different than the beautiful. A even notices the different ways Riannon reacts depending who she is standing next to. She is more affectionate with males she finds attractive than she is with females. She acts intimidated when next to the overly beautiful woman. She is disgusted by the incredibly obese young man.

Over all, this is my favorite book to date and certainly my favorite book for 2013. I highly recommend it for teens and adults alike.