Every Day (Levithan)

Every Day
David Levithan, 2012
Random House Children's Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307931887


Summary
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 he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

With his new novel, David Levithan, bestselling co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, 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. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 7, 1972
• Where—Short Hills, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A.,  Brown University
• Awards—Lambda Literary Award (2)
• Currently—N/A


David Levithan is an American young-adult fiction editor and award-winning author. His first book, Boy Meets Boy, was published in 2003. He has written numerous works featuring strong male gay characters, most notably Boy Meets Boy and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

At 19, Levithan received an internship at Scholastic Corporation where he began working on the The Baby-sitters Club series. Seventeen years later, Levithan is still working for Scholastic as an editorial director. Levithan is also the founding editor of PUSH, a young-adult imprint of Scholastic Press focusing on new voices and new authors. PUSH publishes edgier material for young adults and is where Patricia McCormick got her start with 2002's Cut.

In an interview with Barnes & Noble, Levithan claimed that he learned how to write books that were both funny and touching from Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. After working as an editor for years, Levithan's first book Boy Meets Boy was published in 2003. He continues to work as both a writer and editor saying, "I love editing just as much, if not more than writing". Levithan's first collaboration with author Rachel Cohn, 2006's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was adapted for the big screen in 2008, and his novel, Love is the Higher Law, was published in August 2009 by Knopf Books for Young Readers. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
It demonstrates Levithan's talent for empathy, which is paired in the best parts of the book with a persuasive optimism about the odds for happiness and for true love.
New York Times Book Review


It's the rare book that challenges gender presumptions in a way that's as entertaining as it is unexpected and, perhaps most important, that's relatable to teens who may not think they need sensitivity training when it comes to sexual orientation and the nature of true love. Every Day is precisely such a book.... A story that is always alluring, oftentimes humorous and much like love itself—splendorous.
Los Angeles Times


Rich in wisdom and wit.... Levithan keeps the pages turning not only with ingenious twists on his central conceit but with A's hard-earned pieces of wisdom about identity, isolation, and love. Every Day has the power to teach a bully empathy by answering an essential question: What's it like to be you and not me—even if it's just for one day?"
Entertainment Weekly


Is it possible to disregard someone’s exterior to see—and love—that person’s true, interior self? That’s just one of the provocative questions Levithan (Every You, Every Me) asks in a novel that follows “A,” who takes over the body of a different person each day at midnight. Right around A’s 6,000th day on the planet, A meets Rhiannon—girlfriend of current host body Justin—and falls in love. A is careful not to disrupt the lives of the bodies he/she inhabits (A doesn’t identify as male or female), but that starts to change as A pursues Rhiannon. Levithan sets up the rules of this thought experiment carefully: A only hops between the bodies of teenagers (who all live fairly near each other), and A can access their memories. As a result, the story unfolds smoothly (the regular shifts between bodies give the novel a natural momentum), but it’s also less ambitious. Despite the diverse teens A inhabits, A’s cerebral, wiser-than-thou voice dominates, in much the same way A directs the lives of these teens for 24 hours.
Publishers Weekly


Every step of the narrative feels real and will elicit a strong emotional response from readers and offer them plenty of fodder for speculation, especially regarding the nature of love.
School Library Journal


Levithan has created an irresistible premise that is sure to captivate readers.... [Every Day] is a study in style, an exercise in imagination, and an opportunity for readers themselves to occupy another life: that of A, himself.
Booklist


Imagine waking up in a different body every day. A is a 16-year-old genderless being who drifts from body to body each day, living the life of a new human host of the same age and similar geographic radius for 24 hours.... Straight boys, gay girls, teens of different races, body shapes, sizes and genders make up the catalog of A's outward appearances, but ultimately A's spirit--or soul--remains the same.... Readers will devour his trademark poetic wordplay and cadences that feel as fresh as they were when he wrote Boy Meets Boy (2003). An awe-inspiring, thought-provoking reminder that love reaches beyond physical appearances or gender.
Kirkus Reviews

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