Every Day by David Levithan

Every Day

A wakes up every day in a new body, a new life. It has always been this way. There has never been any warning about who it will be or where, and it is never longer than one day. A has come to terms with this existence and has found a way to be at peace with the daily changes. Until he wakes up as Justin. Just as A always does, he tries to walk through Justin's life with the object of making as little impact as possible. But then he meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon. In an instant, everything changes. A falls head over heels and is now in the position of figuring out how to be with the same person every day.

I was very intrigued with the premise of this book when I saw it on a table of must reads at Barnes and Nobel. I was doubly excited when I saw that it was also one of the books on YALSA's 2013 Hub Reading Challenge. This was the last of the 25 books I finished to complete the challenge.

While it started well, it quickly frustrated me. The book set out to be a tragic love story...boy loves girl, but can't be with her. I kept rooting for A to find a way to be with Rhiannon long-term. The story did have nice character development, as we learned a little bit at a time about what makes both A and Rhiannon individuals. Along the way, however, I found myself wondering if there could ever be a happy ending. A seemed to have a problem with Rhiannon not taking the constant shifting of bodies well. Can you ever truly love someone who never looks the same two days in a row? How would you deal with not being able to even predict the gender of the person you liked from one day to the next?

It was hard to really feel for either character, even as I rooted for them to eventually find a way to be together. I felt that the story built up nicely, but I felt the story had a very anticlimactic ending. For a book I was so excited to read, I was really let down. It appeared to be leading up to a sequel, but I am not sure whether or not I want to read it.