Review: Every Day by David Levithan

Title: Every Day
Author: David Levithan
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Age Group: Young Adult
Category: Fantasy/Romance
Release date: August 28th, 2012
Pages: 336 (ARC)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Source: Won
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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.

Every Day completely blew me away.  The main character, A, has always experienced life through another person's eyes.  Ever since A was a child, they thought it was normal to wake up in a different body each day, in a new place, surrounded by completely different people.  Now A is a teenager and when they wake up in the body of a teenage boy who doesn't appreciate his girlfriend nearly enough, A spends time with her and quickly falls in love with the person she is.  The day ends, life goes on, and A wakes up in various bodies, but there's only one thing--A can't stop thinking of Rhiannon.

Just one of the things that I loved so much about this book is the fact that the reader is never told what gender A is, and A fits so naturally in any of the bodies they wake up in.  I also love that throughout the book, the reader is experiencing the lives of all of the different people A wakes up in; people of all different race, sexual orientation, etc.  All A wants is to get to know this girl and have her see the person they really are on the inside, not what changes every day on the outside.

A's character is done really well.  As the reader, I could feel their pain of not being able to have what "normal" people have.  While A can feel strong emotion, such as love, it seems as though it would be impossible for them to do anything about it.  A will never have a permanent family like the people whose bodies he/she wakes up in, and the thought of that is heartbreaking.  Rhiannon is also a character you grow to love.  She's just trying to deal the best way she can with everything she's given.

David Levithan surely knows how to tell a story that you won't forget.  By the time I reached the last page, I was consumed by the same bittersweet emotion that I feel whenever I finish reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  Every Day will definitely be a book I go to again and again.