Every Day (by David Levithan)
Read this on the plane on the flight back from Singapore with Ian reading over my shoulder. The premise is that the narrator is a 16-year-old person named A. who wakes up each day in a different body. (Rather Quantum Leap-esque.) S/he then falls in love with Rhiannon, the girlfriend of one of the people whose bodies s/he inhabits.
This was a neat premise and a fun read, though I had some criticisms. A lot of the individual "leaps" got a little mini-PSA (transgender kids deserve understanding! depression is a sickness! gay kids are just the same!) and the love story/attraction seemed a little sudden. The love story also starts at the very beginning of the novel, and I kind of wish we'd had a little more establishing of the "rules" of A's world before diving into the love story. Also, I feel obligated to mention a hint of fat-phobia in one of the vignettes.
But ultimately the book was very enjoyable. I liked the ending, though it did remove some agency from Rhiannon, which I did not like. Basically don't think about this one too hard, and you'll enjoy the read. Sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, but it's definitely enjoyable YA. Maybe not worthy of all of Entertainment Weekly's gushing, but enjoyable nonetheless.
This was a neat premise and a fun read, though I had some criticisms. A lot of the individual "leaps" got a little mini-PSA (transgender kids deserve understanding! depression is a sickness! gay kids are just the same!) and the love story/attraction seemed a little sudden. The love story also starts at the very beginning of the novel, and I kind of wish we'd had a little more establishing of the "rules" of A's world before diving into the love story. Also, I feel obligated to mention a hint of fat-phobia in one of the vignettes.
But ultimately the book was very enjoyable. I liked the ending, though it did remove some agency from Rhiannon, which I did not like. Basically don't think about this one too hard, and you'll enjoy the read. Sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, but it's definitely enjoyable YA. Maybe not worthy of all of Entertainment Weekly's gushing, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Labels: young adult
posted by mo pie at 10:25 PM
2 Comments:
i thought the fatphobia was blatant. to me it seemed like an epic dismissal of the ability of a fat person to be happy. i had liked the book very much up until that point and that made me want to throw it against the wall.
Yeah that's a good point. Thinking back, it really was just horrible. I take back the "hint of" part.
Post a Comment
<< Home