{Review} EVERY DAY by David Levithan

O P E N I N G   H O O K:

Day 5994

I WAKE UP.

Immediately I have to figure out who I am.  It's not just the body--opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I'm fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth.  The body is the easiest thing to adjust to, if you're used to waking up in a new one each morning.  It's the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp.  
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.

(page 1, ARC edition)

{This review is lighter because it is spoiler-free; I almost released this as a Flash Review, but it was too long to do so!}

EVERY DAY is the first novel I have read by Levithan that he hasn't co-authored with someone else, and after knowing him as a very contemporary author, I found his slip into the fantastic to be extraordinary.  The book is still full of the gorgeous description and terminology I've come to expect by Levithan, and is highly quotable.  There's so much insight into humanity and the way we work, as well as the trappings of society.  This concept would be preachy in any other book, but through the novel's narrator, reads perfectly.

Centered around A., a sexless soul who spends life inhabiting someone else's body every day and never his/her own, A. has never known another life.  Was A. born a male, a female?  What caused A. to jump bodies day after day, always waking up to a new life?  These are questions A. doesn't know the answer to.  It has always been this way, and it will always be this way.  It is impossible for A. to make lasting connections, but even A. wants a family, wants romance, wants an ordinary life.  When A. meets Rhiannon and makes a connection, s/he goes out of the way to maintain it despite the odds stating such a thing is impossible.

I love the way A. is able to see society through untainted eyes, focusing on what's truly important and realizing that what we're taught to see and believe isn't always true.  The novel's message is deep and profound, and leaves a lasting impression long after the last page is turned.  There was an...action that occurred toward the very end that rubbed me the wrong way and left a taint in my mind when I think about EVERY DAY, but I know others who have read the book that haven't been bothered by it, so it's very much a "me" thing.  The majority of the book is strong, and I can see EVERY DAY being an award contender because it's so unique, unexpected, and outside the box, truly unlike anything I've ever read before.  I would love to see Levithan do more in this vein, and am looking forward to the release of INVISIBILITY in 2013, which he co-authored with  Andrea Cremer, because it once again promises to be more than just straight-forward contemporary issues.

~*~

C O V E R   D E S I G N:

So simple, yet so clean and intriguing!  The colors are muted, yet there is something ethereal about this cover that makes you give it a second glance.  It's so different from the other books in its genre.

The image of falling people dropping out of the heavens is enough to make one wonder what is going on and grab the book to see.

All of the various elements make this cover intriguing to me, so it works to have a more sedate color palette, otherwise there would be too much going on!

  ~*~

O F F I C I A L   I N F O:

Title: EVERY DAY

Author: David Levithan

Publisher: Random House / Knopf Books for Young Readers

Release Date: Aug. 28, 2012

Received: ARC for Review

SUMMARY:

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.