Title: Every Day
Author: David Levithan
Series: N/A, Standalone
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Publication Date: August 28, 2012
My Rating: 3 Stars
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.
*Note: A in the novel is neither a girl nor a boy, so I shouldn't use 'he', but for convenience, I will be using 'he'.
This book has been on my TBR for a long time already because of the great reviews and recommendations of people, but I was greatly disappointed. When I started reading, I really liked it. The choice of words made the sentences that much more impactful, and I felt the urge to quote every single sentence because of the way to words came together. Also, the opening just pulled me in. Everything made sense, and I was excited because I thought I'd love the book. Boy, was I disappointed!
The first half of the book was amazing, and meeting Rhiannon kept me on my toes. It was amazing because it made the book all the more interesting for me. But then on the second half of the novel, A became this person that I hated. He was always contradicting himself, contradicting what he said in the first few pages.
At the start of the novel, he always said that he should respect the body that he is inhabiting.
"It's hard being in the body of someone you don't like because you still have to respect it. I've harmed people's lives in the past, and I've found that every time I slip up, it haunts me. So I try to be careful."
Then in the end he just became this stalker that doesn't care about the life that he disrupts just to see Rhiannon. He skipped school, made excuses, disrupted lives, all just so he could see Rhiannon. Love shouldn't make one do bad things. On the contrary, it should make one better. But in this novel, love destroys A's ethics, and he becomes a horrible person without a care in the world except for seeing Rhiannon.
I hated those parts, but I loved the ending. Because A suddenly became the good person that he was again from the beginning. <SPOILER> I admired him for what he did, because I knew that it must've been hard. I also loved it because there was closure. <END>
Levithan's writing style stayed perfect up to the end, it's just the story that I had a problem with. I couldn't bear the person that A has become, and I was tempted a lot of times to just drop the book and not finish it. I'm glad I finished it though, because the ending was one of my favorite parts.
I think that this book is not for everyone, but you guys can give it a shot because the writing and choice of words is really great.
“If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: We all want everything to be okay. We don't even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.”
“I wake up thinking of yesterday. The joy is in remembering; the pain is in knowing it was yesterday.”
There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. The only way to survive is to let some of them go.”
“I want love to conquer all. But love can't conquer anything. It can't do anything on it's own.
It relies on us to do the conquering on its behalf.”
“People are rarely as attractive in reality as they are in the eyes of the people who are in love with them. Which is, I suppose, as it should be.”
“Answerless questions can destroy you. Move on.”
“When first love ends, most people eventually know there will be more to come. They are not through with love. Love is not through with them. It will never be the same as the first, but it will be better in different ways.”Labels: 3 Stars, Contemporary, Review, Romance, Young Adult
