Every Day by David Levithan

What if your sense of "you" changed on a daily basis, as if you were a new person every single day of your life? If you woke up in a different body with a different family with different friends in a different place...forever. For as long as can remember, and for as long as you'll be alive. Who would you be? For A, this daunting prospect is a grim reality. Neither male nor female, neither here nor there, A wakes up inside of a different person every day of his/her life. (For the sake of writing this, I will continue by addressing A as a male.)

One day, though, is different than the rest: A falls in love with Rhiannon, a girl with a spirit as wild as his (except that she doesn't jump bodies). Now A, who is in Rhiannon's boyfriend Justin's body, makes Rhiannon believe that Justin truly loves her, that he's changed from harsh and demeaning to warm and wonderful. But the next day Justin is back to normal, and A is someone else entirely. As A continues to try to find ways to get back to Rhiannon, to connect with her, to prove that he loves her, and that he really does exist, he is faced with concerned parents, jealous boyfriends, and a whole lot of trouble from two people who believe A is a demon needing to be exorcised and sent to hell...

Levithan creates a world that is so similar to reality, and yet entirely different. He puts a new twist on "walking a mile in somebody else's shoes," quite literally. This book often reminded me of Leap Day, another great teen read, which dealt with how people's lives are interconnected over the course of one day. Every Day, however, takes place over an extended period of time. A gets to experience a variety of lifestyles and obstacles and Levithan presents the material in such a way that it makes me grateful for the life I have. In the words of Ben Franklin, "Envy is ignorance." The reader, right there with A, deals with questions regarding sexuality, eating disorders, suicide, drugs and alcohol, and, on the flip side, the happier sides to life.

A's existence is not something I would wish for myself. But his existence does cause the reader to question what it would be like, and if we had the choice to be ourselves for eternity or be like A and be someone new forever, what would we choose?

Poignant, dramatic, funny, and captivating, Levithan has conjured up a magically captivating novel. There are scattered curses throughout, some PG/PG-13 rated kissing/romance, and many different types of thematic elements. I'd recommend this book for ages 14 and up.

Happy readings!