Review: Every Day by David Levithan

 

Title: Every Day

Author: David Levithan

Published: August 28th 2012 by Knopf Books for Young Readers

Book Description:

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.

My Thoughts:

“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.”

What is true love? How can we define that we really love someone? Is it really just physical attraction that makes us fall in love or do we love/like someone because of who he/she really is? Can you see past the physical and look beyond?

Those are the questions that plague my mind after reading David Levithan’s work. And like Fault in Our Stars, this is also the first book that I’ve read from Mr. Levithan’s and I’m glad I’ve read this.

A, the main protagonist of the story, is a soul. He/she is genderless and also body-less which means he has no physical body to inhibit his soul in. He only drifts and wander from body to body everyday of his life and I can’t help but feel sorry for him. The idea of not having a concrete thing in your life felt so heartbreaking that I kind of past the idea that I might felt a bit scared too if I’m one of the body he ‘possessed’. I seriously thought that A is one of the most tragic protagonists you’ll ever read. And as you read on, you would find that he has simple wish and that is to live a life where he would wake up and see the person he saw last night. A’s actual thoughts portray this desire, “I wake up thinking of yesterday. The joy is in remembering; the pain is in knowing it was yesterday.”

Finding and falling in love with Rhiannon, is like As’ salvation. She became his anchor but how can you fall in love with someone who has no physical shape? I actually understand her side that no matter how much her love for A equates. Being with someone who inhabits different individuals every day of your life is like meeting a different set of new people every day. And I think that as much as we love someone, there is still a point that we look outside of him or her rather on what his or her character is.

That’s why I actually don’t see Rhiannon as someone superficial. This is due to the fact that she really tried to love A and her testament that she really love A but who are we to blame her to feel confuse each time she met A. One time you’ll see A as a girl, as a boy, as a teenage beauty queen and so on and so forth. And the truth of the matter is female wish for a happy ending. Someone they would wake up with. Someone constant.

He also showed the side of one of A’s inhabits. His confusion on what happened that day A was him. You can see the way he felt like his in the dark and was lost in a story or memory he can’t find. He also portrays the fear of a person who knows that someone has controlled them without him knowing exactly what happened. As much as, I was irritated with him with the way he dramatized the story, I also kind of sense why he did what he did. Because we know that sometimes, it’s really scary not to know. We strive to remember everything as much as we can because it’s how people are made of.

Overall, Mr. Levithan showed a very tragic love story in Every Day that breaks the boundaries of true love, self worth and what is right from what is not. He uses a writing style in which you can still define A from the body he inhabits. He showed two stories yet stick to the main protagonist character. Also, the story gave you time to reflect on the value of how fortunate we are that we have people that we can see everyday and as much as we get sick of normalcy, they are still our constant anchor in life and a testament that, YES… WE DO EXIST.

“I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present because that is where I am destined to live.”

I give this 4.5 drifting whales.