Every Day Book Review
What if every day of your life, you woke up in a different body, were a different gender, had to be someone else completely? In Dave Levithan’s novel Every Day, we follow A, who does just that - he wakes up every single day in a different life and with a different body: always moving on after just one day. I call A a “he,” but his? her? gender is never actually revealed. A has good days and bad days, painful days and happy days, but every day is a new experience. He passes through these days like a shadow, never getting attached, never becoming interwoven in the fabric of someone else’s life. His perception on his outlook changes the second he meets Rhiannon. There is an instant spark, instant chemistry, and he feels connected to her soul, and this time, A needs more than just one day. He longs for more time with Rhiannon, and so rises the question: can you be loved by a single person, and be in love with a single person, if you are never a single person from day to day? The book is full of teenage love and angst, but I wish that Levithan had done something more constructive with gender and sexuality in this book. A is genderless, and Levithan’s uncomfortableness with discussing gender as a part of A’s identity disappointed me a bit. Everyone assumes that A is a “he” because he falls in love with a “she,” but why couldn’t A be a “she” who falls in love with a “she”? It would’ve been interesting to do something with gender and identity, but I suppose the point is that A can be anyone, so why does it even matter? In the end, this book is a great way to get kids to think about fantasy beyond the realm of magic and sword-and-sorcery. I think they have coined this type of fantasy “Urban Fantasy,” as it resides in the real(ish) world. The fantasy is subtle in this, and instead the novel focuses on the strength of spirit and the fragile relationships between humans. All good fantasy, at its core, is about more than magic: it is about love, loss, and relationships. This book reminded me of an anime film that recently came out called Your Name, about a boy and girl who switch bodies every once and a while and live as each other, eventually falling in love: only to discover that the girl had died in an accident 3 years earlier. This novel also reminds me of the book Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi, in which a writer’s character comes to life and they fall in love - and the writer must choose between fantasy and reality. I LOVE urban fantasy so here are some other titles you might want to add to your queue: - Man Tiger, Eka Kurniawan - This Census-Taker, China Miéville - Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
Levithan, D. (2012). Every Day. New York, NY: Random House Children's Books.

















