Every Day is an AMAZING book y'all!! Let me start with that. As is typical with Levithan, he comes up with an extremely unique idea here and completely shatters gender barriers as they pertain to not only how we love each other in a romantic sense, but also as to how we define our bodies. He's basically written a book that anyone - gay, straight, transgendered, can relate to.
He does this with a character who is simply named "A". A character who made me horribly sad when I sat down to really ponder A's life, but also a character that I really came to love. A wakes up in a different body every day. One day A may be a boy, one day, A may be a girl. One day A may be in the body of someone who's 300 pounds, one day, the body of a drug addict, and one day, A wakes up in the body of a boy named Justin who is dating a girl named Rhiannon, and for the first time, A falls in love.
I should mention that A ages with the bodies he is in. So A has lived 16 years so is always in 16 year old bodies right now. A has never told anyone about how life is, what A goes through every day, how waking up in a different body every day is. But I started to imagine what that meant and it was horribly sad to me. Something that was eventually addressed in the book. A has no parents that are known, will never know what it's like to be in the same household every day, will never be able to wake up next to the same person, go to the same school or job or have a true daily routine. But A does have some things that are normal like an email account that is accessed from wherever A happens to wake up on any given day.
And it's through this email account that A is able to have some type of relationship with Rhiannon after telling her, telling SOMEONE for the first time what life is like. You can imagine that this can't be a happily ever after story, but it is a moving story and such a beautiful story. I won't say much more than that...I'll let you read the story of A and Rhiannon.
Levithan leaves this where there COULD be room for a sequel, though I doubt there will be. I think the book ends on a perfect note. Another thing I'll point out is that it must have been SO hard for Levithan to write this book!!!! Just writing this review was hard! I wanted to say "his" or "her" so many times instead of just "A", but A has no gender. Has never had a body. As far as wanting an answer as to how this happens, there is none, and I don't think that's a cop out for Levithan. I never felt like I needed an explanation because A doesn't understand it. It's just always been life.
Needless to say, I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this one!!! It'll be on my top 10 of the year...I'm fairly certain of that!
5 comments:
SPOILER for those reading comments...
Okay, Chris...here was my ultimate problem with the book. I didn't have an issue with the ending w/ A, but a HUGE one with how A introduced lady friend to another boy. "This one is a good replacement." Ugh. Rubbed me the wrong way. Like, I think I would be totally insulted if Di had a terminal condition and was gonna die and goes, "but you know what, find peace in THIS person." and that's how I took it.
Heard so many good things about this one now. Really want to read it!
I cried so much at the end of this book, lol.
I totally agree about how hard it is to write about A and never use he/her and admittedly I did think of A as more male than female probably because we were first introduced in a male body.
Christina, Emailed ya :p
Darren, OMG you need to read this one!!!
Amy, Same here! LOL...the ending got to me too...I hated the way it had to end, but think it's the only way it could've ended...though I agree with Christina's criticisms at the same time. I saw A as a male too and I think you're right..I think it's because we were introduced to A in a male body!
Wow. Wow wow wow wow wow. What an amazing concept. That alone has me intrigued enough to know I MUST have this book.
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