Every Day

Not a fan. It's been a while since I've read YA, so I'm not sure if this is objectively juvenile writing or if it fits neatly into the genre, but I'm inclined to think the former; after all, I've read and enjoyed (if not loved)plenty of YA in the past, or books at that reading level, from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games to John Green teen romances. This book feels...flat. The plot is flat and anti-climactic. The dialogue is flat. Scenes are flat. The characters are especially flat (seriously, he fell in love with Rhiannon after a few hours? Rhiannon is boring AF and WAY too trusting of strangers. Which means A fell in love with her physical appearance, mostly, which is antithetical to THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE BOOK).

Oh, and the premise is wholly implausible. I don't like having to accept this absolutely bonkers premise in a world that is supposedly ours (vs. fantasy world, dystopian, etc). Especially because the “rules” of said premise are so artificially imposed, making it harder to buy in. And for a book like this to work, the reader HAS to buy in.

I'll give it this: the premise does drum up some interesting questions about identity. How tied is our identity to our bodies, and our circumstances? What truly makes a person a person? And how might these questions affect our experience of romantic love?

Also, it does force us to explore what it is like to be in someone else's shoes, quite literally; so I also appreciate the exercise in empathy.

But mostly I appreciate that it only took me a few hours to read because on the whole I thought it was dumb.

Every Day explores a unique and very interesting concept, told through David Levithan's words, which happens to be one of my favourite types of wording. (That sentence sounds so weird.) Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot and it definitely made me think about sexuality, gender and relationships in a new way.

I guess this book irritates me a little in that it isn't Levithan's best work in my opinion, yet it is by far the most popular. He's one of my all time favourite authors but not because of this book. If you liked this, check out his other works because they're really, really great.

This concept is so full of potential, so many ways it could make a rich and smart and poignant novel. Every Day gets very close to fulfilling that potential.

It's both tragic and uplifting, and the tone is balanced throughout. It's a smart sci-fi novel with the skin of a well above-average YA romance, and both manage to be interesting. The ending doesn't answer any of the questions I had while reading, but it still feels like the way this story should have ended. It doesn't quite achieve the level of greatness it has the potential to, but it's a great story anyway.