Every Day by David Levithan

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4.5Q 4P J S

Levithan, David. Every Day. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. 324p. $16.99. 978-0-307-93188-7

What if you woke up in a different body every day?  What if your life always had to be lived under the guise of someone else?  What if you fell in love with someone while in someone else's body?  And what if you wanted nothing more than to be with that person every single day?

A knows exactly how this feels.  This has been A's life for sixteen years.  Never truly a boy or a girl, A wakes up in a new body each day and borrows the life of someone else, trying to disrupt as little as possible...  That is, until A wakes up as Justin, and discovers Rhiannon.  But how can they be together when A has never had a body to call home?

Levithan tackles this beautiful love story with fluid, poetic prose and the ability to foster a deep connection not only between the story's main characters, but between the story and its reader as well.  A's ambiguous identity, being neither male nor female, allows the reader to consider a love that transcends all labels and all boundaries.  A's involvement in others' lives allows us to consider our effect on the world around us, and the people whose lives we touch, however minimally.  Readers will be hard-pressed to abandon Every Day for even a moment, desperate for Rhiannon and A to find a way to be together.

For anyone who enjoys a good "what if" story, and the excitement of a new and powerful love.