18. Every Day

Sigh. I knew the good book review vibe had to end. But I had no idea it would all come falling down so violently. Every Day was a painful novel to finish because I disliked the main character immensely. Not only that, but the plot held no appeal for me, and I grew frustrated with the entire story. 

...SPOILERS...

While the concept for the story is promising- a main character, A, possesses a different body every day- the actual execution is not. To start off, the main character, A, is incredibly irritating. A wakes up inhabiting a different person everyday, but does nothing extraordinary with it. He/she claims to want to respect those bodies, but actually abuses them terribly. Blatantly disregarding his/her own “rules” about living life the way the real owner of the body would, A follows his own agenda. A experiences a “love at first sight” with Rhiannon and spends the entire novel using various bodies to ditch school and lie to parents in order to meet up with Rhiannon. Selfish, much? A takes stalking to a new level, and I cannot empathize with him/her. I felt absolutely no connection to either of the characters; their whole romance felt abrupt and empty. The instant love connection built up the whole plot; there was little to no importance placed on the paranormal aspect of the story. Instead, Levithan spent numerable pages extending the painful romance between A and Rhiannon. There seems to be no development or personal growth in A; perhaps that can be attributed to the lack of any real plot or conflict. Near the end of the book there was a last ditch effort at creating a climax when a reverend told A that there were other people with the same ability. But the reverend was portrayed as potentially dangerous, and then generally dismissed. This is another example of how the supernatural body possession was treated like an afterthought in a novel centered on romance. The whole story was an epic failure of a romance. Although I can appreciate the idea of romance transcending gender and appearance, I found few redeeming qualities in the actual personalities of these characters.