Monday 17 February 2014

Every Day - David Levithan

Title: Every Day - David Levithan
Publisher: Electric Monkey (Egmont Books)
Series: N/A
Service: Own
Release Date: 02/09/2013
Pages: 372
Format: Paperback


Rating: 

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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 wake 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 finally A has found someone he wants to be with - every day...

Give us a few words...



Why do you say that?


This was a tough one to rate. For the majority of the book I was absolutely hooked but there were a few things that I found to be frustrating. 

A finds himself in the body of Justin and spends the day with his girlfriend, Rhiannon. For the first time A finds that he has a strong emotional attachment to Rhiannon and wants to spend time with her which, of course, is not possible. However throughout the book we bare witness to A taking more and more risks just to be able to see her.

I love the concept of this book. It was written beautifully and is rather heartbreaking. As it is from A's point of view we get first hand experience at his frustration of not being able to keep one body, his longing to start a relationship with Rhiannon and his guilt at 'hijacking' bodies of others so that he can start living his own life. The relationship that begins to grow between Rhiannon and A is not smooth and I'm glad that Levithan made it realistic with Rhiannon struggling to cope with A's ever changing appearance.

I was unsatisfied with certain aspects of this book. Rhiannon constantly defends her relationship with Justin saying that there are reasons why they work and that A wouldn't understand. Neither do the readers. Although we may have got a biased opinion of Justin when A was in his body, the other times we see him, Justin seems uninterested in his girlfriend and I just wish we could have known what the glue was that kept them together.

My only other issue with this book was the ending. There was closure to some of the characters that we met however I wanted so much more. I felt like the book was a little rushed at the end and I would have liked to see where all the characters ended up next. I am happy to know that in 2015 we are expecting to see a companion novel entitled, 'Rhiannon' and I hope that will tie up some loose ends.

Overall, I feel that Every Day is a story that raises questions about love and the karmic consequences of our actions. Heart warming and heart breaking, I would definitely recommend that you give it a shot.





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