Every Day (Every Day, #1) in DC Public Library

Oct 01, 2012 Jennifer rated it liked it

An incredibly romantic book about first loves. I found myself very invested at the beginning 1/3 of the book. A is a spirit who can inhabit a person's body for 24 hours, and then is moved to another body. While in Justin's body, he falls head over heels for his girlfriend, Rhiannon.

I love the idea of a spirit moving from body to body and having no physical form. But sometimes I felt the messages were too heavy-handed (i.e. fall in love with the spirit, not the person). It was said over and over ...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Jess rated it really liked it

Shelves: other-supernatural, borrowed-from-library, contemporary, ebook

I'm still not sure what I think of this.

As usual, DL does not disappoint with the development of a pretty new idea, and executes it well. I just don't know how I feel about said execution.

Okay, maybe I'm just processing.

It was pretty effing amazing. I loved the concept--it gave me those Time Traveler's Wife tingles, and that doesn't happen very often with magical realism, even if it is about time travel.

I just wish it hadn't ended so abruptly. ...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Megan Reichelt rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya

"A" wakes up every day in a different body. He (for the sake of clarity I will call him a he) is fully himself, but can access the memories of the person he is inhabiting. He has lived this way all his life. He doesn't know where he is from, who his family is, or even what gender her is. He gets powerful glimpses into the lives of thousands of people, but never has a thread of continuity that he can call his own life. No touchstone that is consistent each day. He has learned to adapt. To go with "A" wakes up every day in a different body. He (for the sake of clarity I will call him a he) is fully himself, but can access the memories of the person he is inhabiting. He has lived this way all his life. He doesn't know where he is from, who his family is, or even what gender her is. He gets powerful glimpses into the lives of thousands of people, but never has a thread of continuity that he can call his own life. No touchstone that is consistent each day. He has learned to adapt. To go with the flow. To not disrupt the world. Until he meets this girl.

This book was incredible! Levithan, like A, is able to jump into the lives of dozens of very different people, in very different situations and each life is complex and fleshed out. You wish, like A, that you could linger with these stories that he passes briefly through to discover what happens to them: the gay man having doubts about his boyfriend, the girl who might commit suicide, the boy trapped in a home-schooled fundamentalist family, the girl who was in a drunk driving accident (and lots of happy ones too, but those were the most interesting).

The meat of the story comes in the questions the story wrestles with. If you were gifted or cursed with this life, how should you use it? Should you respect the life of the person and just live an uneventful day? Should you try to change their lives for the better? Should you say "fuck them" and try to live your own life through that person?

A makes all of these choices as he tries to find Rhiannon from day to day, each day greeting her in a different body. As she discovers his liminal state, other questions rise to the surface: Can you love someone who is always changing their face, a boy one day and a girl the next, sexy on Tuesday, and then not at all your type on Wednesday? What if you can't make plans for the next day, much less long term, since you don't know where or who they will be? Can a relationship survive? Is it fair?

And what happens when one of the people you inhabit wakes up the next morning and remembers that his body was taken over by something else?

Excellent questions wrapped in a compelling, beautiful, tender, heart-breaking prose as the lives of the people he inhabits begin to counterpoint the life that he wants. It leaves me like the end of Joan of Arcadia, and I really want a sequel! ...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Bobbie rated it really liked it

A definite page turner for sure - and was certainly imagining it as a film almost the whole time i was reading it. something was missing though for me...the ending didn't make a whole lot of sense or maybe whatever explanations were given just weren't believable enough for me. still enjoyed reading it though! ...more

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Oct 17, 2013 FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH rated it really liked it

Shelves: listened-to-audiobook

while I mostly liked this book I had some serious issues with it. first off, A is a little creepy. they keep showing up in Rhiannon's life (school? really?) without prior consent. sketchy. second, Rhiannon is a homophobe, and when A is in the body of a transman, Rhiannon keeps misgendering him. it seems like A, this genderless queer superhero, would be more bummed out by this than they are. ...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Mandi rated it it was amazing

This book was pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be. (And I'm glad that it ended the way it did, instead of going for the more obvious happy ending.) ...more

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