Every Day

I was completely enthralled by Levithan’s main character, A, and how they become a different person every day. The idea of falling in love or having a career or even pursuing an interest—a sport, an instrument, an art form—becomes impossible when you live a life like A does.

I related to the idea that A couldn’t present as an individual, that they could only be whoever they ended up being for the day. Starting over every 24 hours was worse than waking up every morning as the same wrong person. At least I had the benefits of making friends, learning… show more.

If I had to pick one book I wish I had written, Every Day would be that book. Why? Because while its premise—a nonbinary teen who wakes up in a different body each day—may sound like your basic YA fantasy romance, it is so much more.

David Levithan illuminates the most profound metaphysical question of what a human being really, truly is and does it so creatively. And he does this while fully situated in the context of what it means to be LQBTQ in today’s world. I liked Every Day so much that I read all of Levithan’s other… show more.

This story follows a bodiless person simply named “A”, who every day wakes up in a new body and has to spend a day in someone else’s life.

A themself doesn’t have much of a life, as no one knows they exist and they would never be able to have anything permanent from day to day, but then they meet Rhiannon, who makes them want to live. The story shows A’s innate desire for a life of their own and a connection, as well as a romanticism for the mundane and the pitfalls of idealizing others.

Every Day shows that… show more.

This is a book I’ve also read twice. Imagine if, every day, you ended up in a different teenager’s life, but you only get to live it for one day? Imagine if, one day, you met the love of your life and have to try and conduct a romance with them when you are in a different person’s body every day, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes tall, sometimes short, sometimes a person of colour, sometimes not... I love the unique take the author has taken on the theme of it being the person inside that matters the most.

Here’s an interesting twist on the topic of multiple points of view. Every Day is actually a first-person narrative from one perspective—but it follows the character’s consciousness through the inhabitation of multiple bodies. Every day, see, a character named simply “A” wakes up inside a new human being, displacing the other consciousness and experiencing the person’s life fully for 24 hours. It’s a love story with an emphasis on our current conversation about gender fluidity, but personally, the narrative taught me excellent lessons about putting myself in other people’s shoes and seeing what their experiences and their idiosyncrasies bring to… show more.