There was this 2015 reading challege that I saw in Facebook. I reposted it and accepted the challenge, then just a few hours after I forgot about it. But lo and behold, I saw someone in my WordPress reader accepting this same challenge:
If you noticed, there’s already a marked entry: a book you started but never finished. And here comes my first book of 2015.
When I picked Every Day by David Levithan from my shelf, I wasn’t thinking about the challenge. What I really wanted was something simply worth reading. (I don’t want to plunge into the year’s regularity without finishing a book. Actually, I’ve been avoiding my phones just to savor this break.)
Every Day was a book I started about two years ago. A couple of chapters after, I decided that I wasn’t into the story and its characters. Now I’m glad I restarted reading it for I don’t even remember what was so distasteful about it when I dropped it before. And I guess it’s about the timing. There’s always a right book for the right time.
The story begins with a person who wakes up every morning in a different body, in a different life. Let the person be known as A. A has to deal with the inconsistency of waking up to different lives: lifestyle, friends, parents, routine, and many more. A’s fine with it, and yet when A falls in love with a girl, A tries to bend his/her limitations.
I’ll try not to spill some spoilers in this post, but I just have to say that I like how Levithan made its premise work. It took me a long time (years!) to erase my skepticism on its plot.
I like how the story stopped at the right moment, at the only just (yet heartbreaking) conclusion that there can ever be in A’s life. (But I do wonder if Levithan’s open about making a second book about A.) Also, it should be mentioned that the novel tests the flexibility of the reader’s perception towards gender and same sex relationships without being too imposing.
Finally, the novel implicitly communicates to the reader how one easily takes their days for granted in the eyes of someone who can’t hold on to things for any longer than a day (A). Maybe some days, you’d prefer being A and live different lives each day without the hassle of fulfilling promises and responsibilities, without the burden of long term relationships and tomorrow. But in the end, would that be a life worth living?
I thank myself for giving this book a second chance, more so, as my first book of 2015. 🙂
she loves wednesdays 