Friday, July 10, 2015

Everyone can learn something from David Levithan's Every Day

                It’s Friday!  Okay excitement for the coming weekend and what I hope will be a good reading weekend.  Let’s get stated on another book review.  I read this book with my usual read-along pal, on a long Sunday at work.  We both flew through it.  This book was Ever Day by David Levithan.  I had the great pleasure of meeting Levithan at YALLfest last year.  I had not, at the time, read any of his books though I owned two of them.  He was very nice and I told him how excited I was to start reading this book. 

                I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I started it.  I vaguely remembered the summary from when I purchased the book several months prior but mostly I knew that some people I trusted said it was good and that was enough.  The basic idea of the book is following ‘A’ our lead character who is neither male nor female (though I will probably refer to A as a he during the review because that was how I saw A in my head) and has no body.  A is a soul who wakes in a different body each day and borrows their life for the day.  A has no idea why his life is this way and has accepted this.  He never gets too attached and tries not to ruin the persons life in the one day he has it.  Everything is going as per normal, until A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets his girlfriend Rhiannon.  The so called rules he normally goes by are gone as he suddenly has found someone he wants to be with every day. 

                Sounds complex right?  It is.  The idea of the story is pretty interesting and the way that A has no way to discuss it with anyone and it’s not like this is normal.  I love A.  A simply is.  A lives a different life each day.  A is a guy, a girl, gay, straight, mean, shy, sweet, suicidal, thin, sick, overweight, popular, nerdy, you name it he has been it.  He lives a million different experiences that allow him to experience more in his short life than most of us will ever see.  He always sticks to the same age, growing each year, and in the same general area, but the life experiences are incredible.  A really gets inside a person and not only borrows their life but can see how they live it.  A is able to get to the very depth and see who the person really is and who they put forth into the world.  This really touched me.

                All of the different lives come with their own ups and downs as one would guess.  Justin was that point for him.  Justin had an amazing life, mostly because he had an amazing girlfriend in Rhiannon, who A didn’t feel was appreciated.  Leaving Justin’s body as he did with everyone, without any power to stay, is the hardest transition A has had.  Having something you actually want for your own and no way to keep it was moving.  I felt for A instantly.  To never have one thing as your own, friends, family, etc., I just couldn’t imagine. It seemed sad but for the most part A seemed well put together given the life.  A was adaptable and saw people for simply people, which could teach us all something. 

                I really related to the story and the way it was told in that we all seem to have times where we keep part of ourselves hidden inside and put another part out for the world to see for a variety of reasons.  Seeing him go through so many lives and that this concept seemed universal clicks.  Some lives got to me more than others.  That’s it really.  Anything more would ruin the journey for you.  Check out this amazing book about PEOPLE, yes some romance elements, but so so much more.

Rating: 5 Stars  


                I look forward to sharing more goodies with you next week.  Have a safe fun weekend.  Share your thoughts on the book and anything else down below.  Comments are food to the soul!  Oh and one more thing I almost forgot!  There is a sequel for Every Day coming out August 25th called Another Day.  I just got an ARC of it and look forward to starting it and reviewing it for you wonderful readers!  

2 comments:

  1. Loved your review! This was such a great read and I am so glad we were able to read it together. Reading is fun, but reading with a friend is so much more :) I can't wait for us to read Another Day and see the other side of this amazing story.

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    1. I know, reading can be so solitary. It's one of the reasons I first started my blog to make book friends who would understand and be able to discuss books!

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