Every Day - David Levithan

Title: Every Day

Author: David Levithan

Publisher: Text Publishing

Publish date: 2012

ISBN: 9781921922954

Book Quote:

“… we all have about 98 percent in common with each other. […] For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that’s different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that.”

_________________________________________________ 

Head-scratching time. I read through this at break-neck speed, almost traumatized each time something forced me to stop and carry on with a bit of Life. “Gripping” is an understatement. This book takes you hostage and throws away the key. But why? And how?

Plot: the main protagonist is a 16-year-old being who jumps at the stroke of midnight from one victim’s body to the next – not through malice but as a way of existence. Falls in love with a girl, would really like to hang around, but gets transferred to the next host as usual. Struggles to make this extreme take on long-distance-relationships work.

The author says he wanted to explore the viability of loving someone who changed every day – but as so often, the real agenda is the diametric opposite to the author’s stated aim. The real question and interest is the necessity of sameness in love – and by extension emotional well-being. In a book where the narrator changes literally every day, the main theme is stability, and its role in human existence, examined through the lens of extreme instability.

The review circles make fascinating reading. Polarized opinions or what. Love, hate, confused, but one thing they have in common is that they all needed to read to the end. I haven’t seen a single mention, even from the worst detractors, that the novel dragged. I’ve seen the word ‘Boring!’, but this is used in the sense of I-don’t-like-the-subject-matter-and-I’m-objecting. Many found the internal logic of the novel questionable, and the logistics not explained sufficiently. It seems that in general, the older you are, the less you’ll find this objectionable.

The younger readers seemed to object to the ‘preachy’ authorial tone coming through, via the overtly non-judgmental and accepting attitude he gives the narrator: on gender issues, body image, class, you name it. I found this response interesting, because as I read the novel I thought ‘well this is a bit facile and banging things home with a seal-club, but I guess the audience is YA, why not keep it clear? After all every novel has some axe to grind even if it’s buried – it’s its raison d’etre. Every novel is in some way about How To Be Human, this one just tackles it ore head-on than most. That’s good, isn’t it?’ But apparently not always. Moral: never, ever, EVER condescend to kids. It’s disrespectful and insulting and they know it. Condescending to adults often works quiet well – and sells. They rather like being told what to do. Interestingly, as I read I was reminded of John Green, on a careless day. Then I found that David Levithan and John Green co-authored a book called Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Huh. Specifically, I was thinking of The Fault In Our Stars (it’s the only John Green book I’ve read) which blew me over with technical wizardry and literary acrobatics hidden under 20 feather beds of easy-readability – none of which would be visible to 99.9% of adults let alone YA, but was carefully and respectfully planted there anyway. (I wrote a blog post on it at the time – here.) Levithan doesn’t do this. But he does have the same forward impetus and urgency of tone that tugs the reader forward without remorse.

Perhaps the must-know factor comes from the simple intrigue of how-the-hell-are-you-going-to-solve-this-one as circumstances change every chapter. There’s absolutely no predictability and the parameters seem impossible. We listen in with the wide-eyed suspense of a traveler's tale, a Marco-Polo or Gulliver or Crusoe of overcoming obstacles. Is that it? Perhaps.

I think it’s also because it’s a damn good love story. It has all the youthful hope and altruism and absolute blind need for forward thrust that comes with a good, deep, pure early love. Before we’ve learned to accommodate, or accept, or compromise, or differentiate self-projection and idealizing from the reality of what another person is. Before we’ve been beaten and weathered down and the world seems at best tinted, not polychrome. I’m not sure how a writer almost exactly my age comes up with this, but hey, good job. If you’ve never really fallen in love, don’t bother reading this. Save it for later.

I’m giving it four and a half moose hoofs up out of five. I simply can’t give a full five because of the condescension mentioned earlier, and because he mis-uses the word ‘enormity’ ELEVEN times throughout the novel. The fact that I’m giving this much even with that hideous fault stomping all over the book shows just how impressed and intrigued I am. But please, dude. I know that eventually enough dim-wits and language abusers will misuse the word for it to become accepted usage. I know language changes. At the moment ‘enormity’ does NOT mean ‘enormousness’ and authors should not be the ones to promulgate discord and misunderstanding. Use another freakin’ word.

Anyway, go read the book. If you’ve ever fallen in love.