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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Aug 2012, 336 pages
Paperback:
Sep 2013, 336 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Norah Piehl
Buy This Book
In his New York Times bestselling novel, David Levithan introduces readers to what Entertainment Weekly calls a "wise, wildly unique" love story about A, a teen who wakes up every morning in a different body, living a different life.
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 to be with - day in, day out, day after day.
With his new novel, David Levithan has pushed himself to new creative heights. He has written a captivating story that will fascinate readers as they begin to comprehend the complexities of life and love in A’s world, as A and Rhiannon seek to discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day.
Excerpt
Every Day
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.
The information is there. I wake up, open my eyes, understand that it is a new morning, a new place. The biography kicks in, a welcome gift from the not?me part of the mind. Today I am Justin. Somehow I know this--my name is Justin--and at the same time I know that I'm not really Justin, I'm only borrowing his life for a day. I look around and know that this is his room. This is his home. The ...
Although the premise of Levithan's novel might seem far-fetched, the concept is a deeply provocative starting point from which to explore a wide variety of topics and themes...Every Day also gets at the heart of what it means to be human and what it means to love. Both are, at best, elusive and, at worst, impossible for A...The profound loneliness of A's life - the lack of genuine connection, and the absence of the opportunity to know someone over time and have him know you – is, at times, nearly unbearable...continued
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(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
David Levithan might take an unusually philosophical approach to the idea of occupying someone else's body in Every Day, but he's hardly the first person to explore it in fiction. Here are just a few other great examples, which run the gamut from light-hearted to more serious:
The classic book in the "body swap" genre is, of course, Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers.
Originally published in 1972, the humorous story imagines what would happen if eternally bickering teenage daughter Annabelle Andrews switched bodies with her mother. The book has been adapted for the screen several times, and also sparked several sequels, including Summer Switch, in which Annabelle's younger brother switches bodies with their high-powered executive father.
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