Gypsy Reviews

Originally posted at Gypsy ReviewsEvery Day draws you in with its poignant and thought-provoking writing that is typical of a Levithan novel and one of the best aspects of the book. It had a peculiar concept and reminds us that love has no boundaries – we are capable of love for everyone. However, the execution and the story wasn’t all that impressive as the main character bordered stalkerish and a little too pushy for his own good.No doubt A is a character unlike any other, A is neither a guy or girl though I think we assume that he takes the identity of a guy though every day, he ends up in a different body. He never knows which body he is going to be in but he goes through that person’s life for one day and continues the cycle. One day, he ends up in the body of Justin and meets his girlfriend, Rhiannon and through that one day, A has fallen in love with Rhiannon. He breaks his code and every day, regardless of what body he is in, he goes to see her and eventually tells her who he is.I was very much bothered by this part of the book because A hardly knows Rhiannon, I don’t think one day qualifies as being able to tell if you’re in love with someone. It simply isn’t very realistic and I didn’t like A’s attitude towards this. He starts uprooting other people’s lives for one day and taking advantage of them to do what he wants. I know he doesn’t have much free will himself because he doesn’t have his own body but it just seems so wrong. Plus, he’s trying to convince Rhiannon that his love for her is true and she needs to dump Justin because he isn’t good for her. I don’t think that was A’s decision to make because it’s Rhiannon’s life and he doesn’t have a right to tell her how to live it no matter how badly Justin treats her. It might have been for Rhiannon’s own good but the way he approached it just made me very uncomfortable. He started to get very stalkerish and followed her every day, needless to say I was not a fan of their relationship.I did like the concept of A being in a different body every day, it was very interesting and I loved the message it sent across that love knows no boundaries. Love is not all about gender – but about the soul within, the person who you are. A had fallen in love with girls and guys alike, he’s not bisexual or a particular sexual orientation, he loves someone because of who they are inside. Levithan is also fantastic at manipulating words and his writing is fantastic. I have said this before and I’ll say it again but I love thought-provoking quotes that are self-reflective and which you can relate to them. Every Day is in no short supply of them.Not a big fan of the pacing though, once we got into the book, straight away it dived into meeting Rhiannon. I would have preferred getting to know and understand how it felt for A before he met Rhiannon, to go through his usual routine so we got to adjust to the changing bodies every day factor. There was one element in the story that I enjoyed, where one of the bodies A inhabits reports having been ‘possessed by the Devil’ and because A forgot to log out of his e-mail from the guy’s computer and he e-mails him with threats. This leads to the later events of the novel which I won’t mention because spoilers but I do wish it was expanded more as later on we find out that there might be more people like A. It ended pretty abruptly and I would have liked more clarification and a little more depth because it was getting interesting. I was far more interested in that than the romance to be honest.Every Day is not doubt a good Levithan novel but I wouldn’t say it’s one of his best. No doubt the concept is unique and interesting and the writing is great but I wasn’t a huge fan of the characters’ attitude and the MC wasn’t someone I could very much empathise with since I didn’t like him all too much. The romance was a drawback and I didn’t really enjoy it very much and took up a very large part of the book. I would recommend this with reservations so it really depends on what you’re looking for here. If you’re here for the romance, then I say go for it. If not then well, I think you might be better off trying out Levithan’s other novels.