Goodreads Book Review - Every Day

Every Day by David Levithan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I thought this was a beautifully written book, even if it does come off as a YA version of Quantum Leap, but without the science or any explanation at all. Which is fine, because that isn't the story the author was telling, and I'm more than capable of enjoying the story in front of me as it is. I love what Levithan does with the language when it comes to A's narration, and I love the characters; A and Rhiannon feel very vibrant and lifelike to me. I did have a major problem with the book, though, that kept it from getting four or even five stars. The whole story really seems to be about how love is valid no matter the shape it takes, because you fall in love with the person inside... gay, straight, trans, whatever. Love is love and it's beautiful. Until, this book seems to say, it comes to the overweight. Once A explains to Rhiannon his situation, that he wakes up inside a different person every day, she eventually falls in love with him, no matter who he wakes up as. He's a boy, a girl, a boy born in a girl's body, different religions, different races, different ailments, whatever. And she loves him in whatever shape he is. That is, until he wakes up as someone who weighs three-hundred pounds and it's suddenly too much for her to have him be someone else and she calls it off. Granted, it's possible that was just the emotional arc and it would have happened at that point regardless of who A woke up as that day, but the fact that Levithan has her be so taken aback by A's size that she won't even touch him combined with A's own very apparent discuss as he talks about his new body really amounts to a chapter full of body-shaming that mars an otherwise beautiful story about love and acceptance.



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