Am I the only person who hated this book?

Name: Every Day

Author: David Levithan

Published: 2012

Song: Nightswimming by REM

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.
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 A wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

I think I’m part of the small percentage who really disliked this book.

I’ve been trying to find others who share my view, but all I can find is beaming reviews – which, to some extent, I agree with. The concept behind ‘Every Day’ was one of the best I’ve seen in a long time – it follows A, who wakes up in a different body everyday (I wonder where David Levithan got the title from?!). A does question his gender throughout the book, but the blurb refers to him as male so I will too. I felt like there was so much Levithan could have done with this idea, but instead of an epic journey confronting human nature, I just trudged through 350 pages of overly detailed Young Adult romance-rubbish.

Maybe a bit harsh? Sorry. ‘Romance’ might be too extreme for the creepy relationship between A and Rhiannon. The book opens with A in Rhiannon’s boyfriend’s body; he then meets her and instantly falls in lurrvee. He was dreaming about marrying her by page 20. In various different ways, she tells him to leave her alone and yet time and time again he finds her. However, luckily, she eventually returns his feelings (that’s really not a spoiler) although I’m not really sure why. Both of them had little in the way of personalities, all I could pick up was that Rhiannon was a bit homophobic. Although A did try and kiss her in a girl’s boy. And she did say tht she was straight. That side of the book was interesting.

Every Day did cover various issues including depression, drugs, suicide and gender. I read a review of the book that said it felt as if the author was just trying to tick off all major issues, but personally I thought that this side was written well. What do you think?

This book is a film! I thought this was honestly so funny… because A is in a different body every day. How would that work? Basically the only consistent character in the story was Rhiannon, so would it literally just be her at the premier? (She’s also be kissing a lot of different people 😉 )

Another thing I liked about the book was it’s side plot – one of the bodies A was in believed he had been possessed by the devil (I think I would too to be honest) and he enlists the help of an evil vicar who might know more about what A is going through than he lets on….

It felt almost Twilight-esque in that it was just randomly thrown to pad out the make-out sessions. I guess this subplot was kind of refreshingly unexpected. But before we could learn literally anything about the vicar, the book ended! There is a sequel but I’m honestly not sure I could take any more of A and Rhiannon. Interestingly, Levithan also wrote another book in the series that just seems to be the plot of Every Day but from Rhiannon’s pov – kind of like the new twilight book Midnight Sun (I’m seeing a lot of similarities between this and Twilight. Guess Stephanie Myers isn’t the only author running out of money…)

Soooo, baisically Every Day wasn’t the best. A wasn’t even that likeable and I thought that his and Rhiannon’s love was unrealistic. The book did cover a lot of prevalent issues – I think a lot of his books do – and I liked how each body had a message. Swapping bodies every day is a clever idea but personally I thought it was let down by the characters. However, it was easy to read? Let me know if you’ve read this and what you thought – I need some help!

Have you read this book? Got any recommendations or book memes that I should try? Please like and let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.