Who would you be if you woke up someone different every day? Can you even imagine something like that? Never knowing where you’ll end up or who you’ll be? Our identities are something we live with and use to help us navigate through life, but what if the only way to identify yourself were your own thoughts and nothing else?
Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.
Every morning, A wakes in a different person’s body, a different person’s life. 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.
There were so many things I liked about this book. I liked A’s voice. It completely made sense that you couldn’t be attached to anything because there was no way to hold on to anything. And seeing how A tried to remain in contact with Rhiannon after meeting her was really interesting and, at times, heartbreaking.
Honestly, I first picked this book to read because it reminded me of Mercy by Rebecca Lim, a series that starts out similarly to this, except Mercy doesn’t jump bodies every day. It’s an interesting concept that I thought David Levithan did very well. The idea that gender and sexual orientation and race all play into our every day lives, but it doesn’t at all for A was something you could see Rhiannon really grappling with. It’s a difficult idea to accept, that the person you like or even love might be completely different the next day on the outside. Could you stay with someone who did that? Or would it eventually drive you insane?
The ending broke my heart. There was frustration and tears and disbelief that David would leave me HANGING on the edge of that cliff with no hope for an answer or satisfactory conclusion. WHY, David?!
This is the first book of David Levithan’s I’ve read, so now I have to read all of them because I liked this one so much. One day, once I’ve gotten over the heartbreak a little, I might re-read this and fall for A all over again.
Every Day comes out August 28th from Knopf Books for Young Readers (aka Random House) and I highly recommend it.