Book Review: Every Day by David Levithan

Pros: brilliant concept, brilliant writing, compelling characters, thought provoking

Cons:

For Parents: some sexual content, some swearing, very minor violence (two teens fight), mention of drug use

'A' wakes up in a new body every day. The only similarities are the age of A's hosts and their relative proximity to A's previous host. A has come up with a guideline for his/her life: don't mess with the host's life.

When A wakes up in Justin's body and meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon, his/her guideline changes to: spend as much time with Rhiannon as s/he can, often making his/her daily hosts act completely unlike themselves for one day.  This starts to cause problems, both for them and for A.

But A no longer cares. All A wants is for Rhiannon to reciprocate his/her love.

This novel is brilliant. The writing is amazing, the premise is bizarre but handled brilliantly, the characters are interesting, both A and Rhiannon. Similarly A's host bodies are varied by gender, sexuality, race, religion, social class, size, etc. Some are drug addicts, some are nice, some are definitely not nice - to themselves or others.

The premise allows for a lot of interesting social and cultural issues to be brought up - how we see ourselves and how we judge others - making this a really thought provoking book. A's acceptance of everyone as they are, and his/her eventual judgements regarding them as s/he starts to see his/her hosts the way Rhiannon does, with her social conditioning, is fascinating.

It's a brilliant novel and even if you're not a fan of romances, it's worth the read.