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.

Eve by Anna Carey

Eve by Anna Carey

In the not too distant future, a devastating virus has wiped out most of the world's population. Many who didn't die from the virus died from the subsequent "cure." Orphaned at a very young age, Eve has spent most of her life at an all-girl's school, learning everything she needs to know about this new world. The night before her graduation, Eve discovers what really happens to the graduates. Horrified, she flees, escaping into the unknown.

Eve stumbles her way through the world outside her sheltered school life. She has no idea how to survive the challenges in this barren, new world. Along the way, Eve stumbles into Caleb. Since she was a little girl, Eve has been segregated from men and taught to fear them. Caleb slowly succeeds in convincing Eve to trust him,  and he wins her heart, piece by piece. When soldiers begin to hunt them, Eve and Caleb must go on the run, searching for somewhere safe to stay.

Eve is yet another dystopian society book. While the idea is not new, I found the book oddly compelling. The world is a complex twist of wild children living like adults, struggling for survival. There are sympathetic adults (few and far between) manning a new version of the underground railroad and combating the horrifying ideas on how to repopulate the earth.

Caleb is a strong character, forced to grow up way to young working hard labor in a camp rebuilding the city for the adults in power. He has been living in the wild, struggling to survive. I felt his character was strong, but was often missing from the story. I admired his survival skills, but felt the love story could have been flushed out a little better if he was more present.

While I liked Eve's character as she worked to overcome all she had been taught and come to grips with her new life, I felt that she was very needy and flawed. I was annoyed by how she continuously put herself first, causing a lot of harm to those around her. I found that her character had growth as she learned to deal with her new life, but it wasn't until the end that I felt she had finally figured out how to care for others. I am interested to see where the second book takes her character.

Overall, I liked the book, but would have liked to see a bit more character development and Eve figuring out how to not be selfish a little faster.