Name: Every Day
ISBN: 9780307931894

David Levithan

Every morning OAO wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.

Every Day

Someone

It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.

Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.

Every day

Bria

** spoiler alert **
           literally fuck rhiannon

Nabila Azahra

3 stars

The book itself has a great premise but I left pretty disapointed by this. This book was straight up romance. I just need a little explanation of how is it or why. I didn’t even like A that much. But Levithan did a beautiful writings in here! ❤️

Maui S.

This book is just... I'm just sad right now.

Annika Arguemore

I can't even begin to explain how this book captivated and intrigued me in more ways than one. I doubted the book's premise at first but then realized as I was reading that it works. It did work because the story was placed and enunciated in the most capable of hands. Flawless. Poignant. Brilliant.

Kritika Narula

David Levithan had been on my reading list for far too long. I don't like keeping books waiting but alas, So many books, so little time. 
So, when Another Day, a companion was announced, it shot up my interest so much so that I ended up reading Every Day, abandoning all other current reads. 
Was it worth it? You might ask. And my answer would be incontrovertibly, undeniably yes. It was so totally worth it. 
The plot is as refreshing as it gets. It is the story that delves deep into our definitions of friendship, love, companionship and belonging. How far will we go to be with someone? How far are we ready to bend the rules? Is bending the rules worth the breach? Does the breach justify the end? Are we ready for the consequences?
It gets you thinking and keeps you so.

But here is a friendly warning: to fully understand the book, and to let it to what it intends to, you need to accept it as fiction, being a realist wouldn't help. The beauty of the book lies in how it ticks our thinking cells by bringing another dimension to our world. 
This is the story of A. A wakes up each day in a new body- and that implies he misses out on so much. On having an address, on having a family, permanent fiends, and so on. Things we take for granted. Things we'd lose and not realize what hey're worth. 

Apart from the lessons in living, the plot sure does hold a sense of mystery and intrigue. The author has done such a great job in weaving a plot out of nothing, and I am definitely going to read more from the author.
A beautifully written book, provokes you into thinking incessantly, and makes you question the right and wrong.

julia

This was a good story, but I really didn't like how A acted. I know this should be a minor thing, but it was all I could think about. First of all, he barely knew Rhiannon before he decided he was in love with her. Secondly, he's messing up people's lives. He's fully aware of this. So WHY are other peoples' lives worth messing up to stalk some random girl? It was kind of a sweet story, but I was so bothered by the main character.

jess

I feel like i am reading a young adult book. Prosaic and nothing seems out of ordinary, just like a typical ya book. Betrayed by my own expectations, i guess i will not spend time for the next sequel.

Melissa Palmer

Book #40 Read in 2013
Every Day (YA) by David Levithan

Every day "A" wakes up in someone else's body. He can access their memories and set up some ones for them to remember the next day, but he never knows what body he will inhabit next. He takes over Justin's body one day and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend Rhiannon. A continues to see her, no matter what body he is in, and eventually tells her the truth of his life, or lack thereof. Rhiannon has no way of knowing what he will look like the next day. She wants to be with A but does not know how.

This is a fantasy read that has a romantic aspect to it. I enjoyed this book. Each day was interesting to read about and I was rooting for A and Rhiannon to find a way to be together for good. These characters were ones that I cared about quickly. I recommend it.

http://melissasbookpicks.blogspot.com

Katherine Yang

I love David Levithan, and the writing is lovely as always, but I have to say I didn't particularly like or empathise with the characters. Which doesn't always have to be the case, but feels necessary for a story focused on "love transcending all".

Maria

I came across the movie and was surprised at how pleasant/non-cringy/delightful it turned out to be so I read and finished the book on the same day. I like the author's prose, and the book is very forward-thinking in how it presents current social issues. The setup and plot are pretty compelling. A is an old soul, and I enjoy listening to his old soul musings. I'd recommend for a breezy easy Sunday afternoon read. This is my first YA in two years, and it reminds me that it's refreshing and nice to read a good YA once in awhile.

Originally reviewed Jan 05, 2015 | Imported from my Goodreads account

Alberto

Cat Josephson

I didn't love this, but I didn't hate it.... okay, that's not true. I hated the writing style, and the fact that "A" just came off as a stalker to me. Everything else was okay. 2.5/5 stars.

Jeannette Ordas

A unique concept and a fun summer read. 3.5 stars.

aisha

Jeff James

Note: The narrator of Every Day is essentially genderless, but for simplicity's sake I use male pronouns throughout this review.

David Levithan is an interesting standout in the young adult / fiction world. He seems more than willing to experiment with storytelling forms; his previous book, The Lover's Dictionary, chronicled the ups and downs of a relationship through alternately hilarious and painful entries in a dictionary. His new book, Every Day, is more traditional in form, but still full of the same thrillingly out-there ideas that I loved about his previous work.

Every Day's premise is simple but striking; what if you woke up every day in a new body and a new place? Some essence of your self - your soul, some ineffable store of memory - survives the jump from body to body, which gives you continuity of identity, but you also have access to the memories of your "host" so that you can pass unnoticed in their life. How would it feel to look out from different eyes every day, experiencing the world from an infinite number of perspectives? More importantly, what would happen if, one day, you fell in love... and couldn't let go?

A, the narrator of Levithan's story, wakes up one morning in the body of Justin, a sullen teenage boy who doesn't take care of himself, doesn't get along well with his parents and mistreats his girlfriend. A usually tries not to interfere with the lives of his hosts - who seem to match the age he would be if he lived normally - but something about Justin's relationship with his girlfriend, Rhiannon, makes him decide to try and improve her day. They skip school and go to the beach... and A falls in love. After that, A spends each successive day trying to find Rhiannon, working to get to know her and eventually revealing his body-jumping secret.

Levithan plays with some fascinating philosophical concepts throughout. Once A reveals his identity to Rhiannon, the major question becomes: how exactly do you have a relationship with someone who isn't in the same body twice? A, who grew up unsurprisingly open-minded after experiencing life through the eyes of every possible type of person, feels like there shouldn't be anything keeping them apart, but Rhiannon isn't quite so ready to live outside the norms. For example, A notices that she isn't quite as receptive when he is in the body of a girl or someone who isn't traditionally attractive. Late in the book, the question arises of what it would mean if A and Rhiannon had sex in one of his host bodies, since it has been made clear that the hosts do remember vague details of their lives the next day. All of these complications make A's story poignantly tragic, and the romance compellingly star-crossed.

A's experiences vary wildly from day to day. One particularly harrowing experience involves a day spent in the body of a habitual drug user going through withdrawal; another centers on a girl who is planning to commit suicide. A is almost always understanding and open-minded about the lives of the people he inhabits, although he does admit early on that he doesn't necessarily like everyone whose life he takes over. The only real false note in the book comes on a day when A inhabits the body of an extremely overweight boy. A refers to him as "the emotional equivalent of a burp" and it seems strangely judgmental by comparison.

The author also introduces a subplot about a boy named Nathan who gets in trouble with his parents after A controls his life one night. When Nathan comes home after curfew, he blames his behavior on demonic possession. Eventually the story gets picked up by the national news and a shady evangelical preacher starts asking more of the "possessed" to come forward. Nathan remembers enough about his experience to get in touch with A through his secret email account, and tries to convince A to reveal his true nature. Although this storyline does add some tension to the mix, I felt like the book didn't necessarily need it. Every Day largely focuses on the romance between A and Rhiannon, so when a late reveal implies that the story might slip into thriller territory or start exploring explanations for the body-jumping mythology, it doesn't quite fit. Luckily Levithan avoids straying too far down that path.

That isn't to say I wouldn't be curious to know more about the cause of A's body-jumping experiences, and the book definitely ends on a note that would leave Levithan wide open to write a sequel if he chose to. I'd definitely read it, but I imagine it would need to be a very different book, simply because it would only diminish this book to try and repeat the romantic storyline.

All in all, I highly recommend Every Day. It's a quick read full of powerful emotional moments and thought-provoking ideas, and I definitely look forward to seeing what Levithan comes up with next.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley.

Ana Paula

I really really liked this book, the concept was amazing and it made me realize some things like:

~ adapting is possible
~ prejudices can cease to exist
~ obstacles are nothing when you really want something

And although all of these may seem so predictable and what not, it's good to be reminded of them...

Can you love someone who is destined to change each day? Every morning, A wakes in a different person’s body. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. And then A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon.

i loved david levithan’s writing, very poetic and intimate and i actually underlined a lot of lines reading this book. though as a reader, i think what mattered more to me was A having their own life than their love story with rhiannon whom i failed to learn to be fond of. i loved how pure and genuine A’s love was but i just couldn’t feel the same from rhiannon. nevertheless, i cherished every moment they shared in this novel and appreciated how it was painted through levithan’s words. if there’s one thing i really liked about this story, it would be the wide variety of representations that was put in it.  

this novel really made me think, though, how would i be like if i couldn’t have my own body? how would i treat the bodies i would borrow? how would i live the lives i would be living? how would i want that day when they lived as me or i lived as them to be remembered? 

i wished that there was more focus on A themself than the romance. i think that the concept is really promising and could leave a lot of important life lessons if the romance remained only an element of the story, but not the major part of it. 

i loved david levithan’s writing, very poetic and intimate and i actually underlined a lot of lines reading this book. though as a reader, i think what mattered more to me was A having their own life than their love story with rhiannon whom i failed to learn to be fond of. i loved how pure and genuine A’s love was but i just couldn’t feel the same from rhiannon. nevertheless, i cherished every moment they shared in this novel and appreciated how it was painted through levithan’s words. if there’s one thing i really liked about this story, it would be the wide variety of representations that was put in it.  

this novel really made me think, though, how would i be like if i couldn’t have my own body? how would i treat the bodies i would borrow? how would i live the lives i would be living? how would i want that day when they lived as me or i lived as them to be remembered? 

i wished that there was more focus on A themself than the romance. i think that the concept is really promising and could leave a lot of important life lessons if the romance remained only an element of the story, but not the major part of it. 

Emily Perkovich

This was very YA writing, and I did have to keep reminding myself that it is not a new book. But as long as I stayed in the mindset that I would have had when it came out, I loved it.

eliz

easy read but unsatisfying. fantasy with no explanations or anything about the concept, just highly concentrated on the romance

Eva Idsøe

I loved the consept of A always changing body. It was a good story but I hoped for more change.

This is definitely the kind of book that can change somebody's view of the world.
It could just be the concept, but I found this was a really well-written book. The words are put together in a way that makes the reading seem light, yet in reality, as you read on you can see how deep the words being said really are. I would recommend it to a person looking for something to refresh their mindset or to get out of a reading slump. 

The general premise is of a person (or possibly not a person, depending on how you look at it), who calls themselves A. They wake up every day as the mind of a different person, which gives them multiple points of view on the world. You get to see the backstory of this unravel as the novel goes on. They try to live a peaceful existence with this, but what throws off this peaceful existence is Rhiannon. He falls in love. Now, I love romance novels, I find they can give a book such a nice warm and lighthearted feeling to them. But in the case of every day, it almost felt like an unneeded extra. This isn't against the book, because I absolutely inhaled it and loved it. But the romance here just didn't feel needed, as the plotline was complex enough without it. It just felt like there could have been something else to keep the storyline going - the basing it on the relationship between Rhiannon and A just wouldn't be what I would have gone for.

Nevertheless.
Still an amazing book, and I would entirely recommend.

Arctic Wolf

Nicole Dykeman

** spoiler alert **
           I really wanted to love this. I tried REALLY HARD to love this. But there were several things that put me off slightly. 

1. A's falling in love with Rhiannon happened wayyy to quickly for me. I guess I'm not a firm believer in love at first sight. It just didn't make sense to me how fast they fixated on her, or why they fixated on her.

2. A was TOO fixated on her. There were a few moments that skeeved me out when Rhiannon was uncomfortable and A was just pushing past it, insisting they loved her and that was all that mattered. It just felt like A was too forceful. 

3. I wish the side plot with Nathan and Reverend Poole was more well developed. I want to know more about the entity living inside Poole!! That was the most interesting part of the book for me.

4. The ending felt kind of abrupt to me. I liked that A was trying to set up Rhiannon with someone they thought she could love and be happy with. I just thought there should have been...more, I guess. 


Overall, I really liked the premise of this and I enjoyed reading it despite the things listed above. It was nice to see LGBT representation in the lives of the different people that A occupied. Seeing who they would be next was a big reason I plowed through this fairly quickly.

Every Day

Reviews

Highlights