Every Day by David Levithan

The book Every Day, by David Levithan includes the main character that has no name but agreed to call himself “A.” He is different, due to the fact that he is always in someone else’s body for a day and then has to pretend to have his or her life. He doesn’t get to have a birthday, parents that have cared for him and will never be able to have the simple things, like to have a friend that you may see at school every day. During the book, “A” begins to love an important character named Rhiannon, but obviously, how is that possible? Plus, he also deals with Nathan, a teenager that thinks the devil possessed him when “A” replaced him for a day. The book showed A’s struggles with loving someone who didn’t know who she was loving back and having to keep quiet about his life.

            Every chapter begins with something like “Today, I am in the body of “the name of character.” With Justin in the first chapter, he was described as a lazy, careless, skinny smoking teenager. As Justin, “A” was with Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. That day, he loved her as “A”, not Justin. Rhiannon was described as a beautiful, strong, smart and shy girl. Once “A” met her for the first time, he couldn’t stand the fact that, it was going to be the first and last time seeing her. Doing something unexpected, he decided to tell her the truth. She had a surprised but confused expression on her face while “A” was being open about his feelings and what his life had been like ever since he was born. For example, the message said “I know you know that guy didn’t act like Justin that day.” He continued to persuade and remind her about how Justin and him are different.

            Towards the end of the book, Rhiannon’s feelings changed on how she felt about Justin and “A.” Every day, after she knew who he was, they began to understand each other and they met up with each other depending on where he lived that day. Plus, as days went on, she began to love him more and more. For example, they both went to someone’s party just to see each other. As Nathan, they danced together all night and as “A” was running out of time, he decided to put Nathans body to sleep.

In Nathan’s body, “A” couldn’t stay any longer in his body because he needed to go play with someone else’s life by the time the clock ticked to 12:00. Waking up in an unusual place, Nathan blamed it on the devil. I found Nathan to be very selfish because he used this story for fame and just wanted “A” to prove that he was not the devil. Further on in the book, Nathan would not quit emailing him, which is the only way he can communicate to people that he doesn’t want knowing about his life. Later on, Nathan secretly got someone’s help after “A” told him the truth so he would stop. This person talked to “A” and it turned out that he wasn’t the only one that changed bodies every day.

Understanding A’s life, I thought that Rhiannon was a positive character because she never knew and she never will know what “A” will look like but she still accepted “A” as he was, which is one of the major messages of this book. Besides Rhiannon and A’s relationship, I found the ending to be very general. The end, ended as if it was another chapter in the book. Though, I enjoyed the book and how many thoughts were put into how the characters felt.