A review by samiism
Every Day by David Levithan

5.0

I found this book from a review on [b:A Thousand Pieces of You|17234658|A Thousand Pieces of You (Firebird, #1)|Claudia Gray|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1400166295s/17234658.jpg|23752694]. If you haven't already clued in, I'm a sucker for stories that involve time travel/alternative universe/rebirth. Other examples in the genre are [b:Touch|22314178|Touch|Claire North|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1415977617s/22314178.jpg|41706739], [b:The Incarnations|23492504|The Incarnations|Susan Barker|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439787175s/23492504.jpg|27676544], and [b:Maybe in Another Life|23492661|Maybe in Another Life|Taylor Jenkins Reid|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1424970519s/23492661.jpg|43082842].

Every Day is really more like Touch, excluding the time travel aspect. In Touch, a "soul" who doesn't have its own body can jump from person to person through touch and commandeer that body. Sort of like a possession. Every Day is like that. However, while the soul in Touch can choose how long to stay in a body, the soul in Every Day has no choice, inhabits only the bodies of a certain age, and lasts in it for only a full day.

Every Day follows A, a soul that is neither male nor female until he/she is in a body. So just be warned. If you have homophobic tendencies, you probably won't like this beautiful book. At the beginning of the book, A wakes up in the body of a sixteen-year-old boy Justin. Justin has a girlfriend, Rhiannon, whom A feels is someone Justin takes for granted. While A usually tries not to disrupt the host's life, he uses this chance to treat Rhiannon right.

Unfortunately, A leaves Justin's body at midnight. The following weeks are then spent using the hosts' bodies to contact Rhiannon, meet up with her, and try to piece together a dysfunctional relationship. Because how can they really be together when A wakes up in a different body every day?

For the most part, A is morally upright. Except when it comes to Rhiannon, when A has gotten hosts in trouble for brash decisions. There is insta-love, but not in the super saturated way that some YA novels present it. And A questions gender, homosexuality, and other "sins of the flesh" that humans tack on themselves. This was a really sweet, good book to read over the weekend.

If you somehow find yourself liking this as much as I did, I highly recommend Touch by Claire North, if you want a similar novel.