Another Day

I got a copy of this book through NetGalley to review. This was basically Every Day told from Rhainnon's point of view. There were parts of the story that I liked and sometimes it was interesting to hear from Rhiannon's POV. However, I kind of felt like we already had a good idea of how she felt in

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Every Day. This made the story a bit boring...you already know what's going to happen here.

Rhiannon has a very love/hate relationship with her boyfriend Justin, but then one day they take a day to go to the beach that is just perfect. It’s a day that makes Rhiannon think that Justin really does love her and this relationship will actually make it. However, the next day Justin doesn’t remember anything. Eventually Rhiannon finds out that the “Justin” she loved that day was not Justin at all but a person named A that lives in a different body every day. Will Rhiannon and A ever be able to make things work out?

I was really looking forward to the sequel to Every Day and this is not that book (I know Levithan discusses this in his opening to the book). At the end of this book we just get more mystery and loose ends just like at the end of Every Day (it’s basically the same story).

Maybe it's because the concept wasn't fresh and new and instead is a rehash of Every Day, but I thought the book was a bit boring. I also got a bit tired of Rhiannon's constant whininess and her constant efforts to talk herself into being in love with her boyfriend Justin. She is honestly kind of a pitiful girl, although she does grow a bit as the story continues.

Yep, Rhiannon was a huge sticking point for me. I didn’t mind her in Every Day, but in this book there is too much of her. She is whiny and needy and self-deprecating; I just really found myself resenting her for most of the story.

Overall it was okay but not nearly as good as the first book. There are some parts where it is interesting to see Rhiannon’s outlook on things, but it wasn’t interesting enough to be a full book. I still really hope that we get to see a sequel to Every Day sometime soon. There are a lot of mysteries left open at the end of Every Day that I would love to see resolved. Definitely read Every Day before reading this one, Every Day is a much better book.

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I loved Every Day. I was excited to see this book because I wanted to know more, wanted to know what would happen next. This book is a companion to the original and goes through the events in Every Day from Rhiannon's point of view. I gobbled up the book. It teases with the idea of outside

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appearance and core identity. I puzzled sometimes about Rhiannon's relationship with Justin and why she worked so hard to hang on to it. Part of the story was about her growing as a person.

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This is a “companion novel” to Every Day, and so I did not feel like I had to reread the first book. But in some ways, it seemed like I was doing a reread, because the author went over the very same events, but from another perspective.

The first book was narrated by A, a being who wakes up each

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morning to inhabit a new body; all are approximately the same age and in the same geographical area, but not necessarily the same race, gender, or ethnicity. A takes on the external shape and characteristics of whatever body is the host for the day. On different days, A is, among other things: a drug addict, a suicidal girl, a morbidly obese boy, a football player, and a mean and spiteful girl. He would like to help them, but he doesn’t want to cause unintended consequences, so he tries to leave their lives relatively undisturbed.

This second book covers the same time frame as the first, but is narrated by Rhiannon, the 16-year-old girl A fell for while inhabiting her boyfriend Justin’s body. A wanted to see Rhiannon again so much that he decided to risk telling her the truth about himself, something he has never done before with anyone.

Rhiannon thinks she loves Justin, her boyfriend of over a year, but he treats her shabbily. He wants her to give to him both physically and emotionally, but has no interest whatsoever in giving to her in return. Still, Rhiannon can’t imagine life without Justin. But A challenges her:

"There are many things that can keep you in a relationship. . . Fear of being alone. Fear of disrupting the arrangement of your life. A decision to settle for something that’s okay, because you don’t know if you can get any better. Or maybe there’s the irrational belief that it will get better, even if you know he won’t change.”

Rhiannon is not totally clueless though. She knows Justin is more focused on himself than on her. She knows it is less than wonderful to claim that Justin is a good catch because at least he doesn’t hit her.

However, when A enters Rhiannon’s life, she suddenly sees what it is like to be with someone who really loves and appreciates her; who sees her. The whole idea of A’s life doesn’t make sense to her, and yet she soon accepts he is telling her the truth.

She also comes to understand at least in theory - because of A’s constantly changing appearance - that the body is like a car; it is the driver that should be important. It’s not always easy for her though. Sometimes A is male, sometimes female, sometimes unattractive, and sometimes very attractive. She can always recognize A from the eyes, at least. Still, she is heterosexual, and it is hard for her to give herself to another female. More disturbing in a way is the fact that even when A is in the body of an *unattractive* male, she feels herself pulling away. Plus, she could never have a normal life with him; never have him be part of her circle of friends, or even part of her family:

"I can’t picture it with a different person every day. That doesn’t feel like a life. That feels like a hotel.”

And yet, neither can she stay away from A, because emotionally, he does give her what she needs.

Then one day, when A is in the body of Alexander Lin, he thinks this boy is someone Rhiannon could like a lot, and who would appreciate her a lot as well. So he manages to have Alexander keep memories of being with Rhiannon (most "hosts" just have foggy recollections of the day A has spent in their bodies), and A tells Rhiannon that he is leaving. A needs to find out what he is and if he can change it, and he wants Rhiannon to be happy. Rhiannon is torn; she likes Alexander, but she *wants* A.

Discussion: As Rhiannon learns what A’s existence is like and tries to adjust her feelings to his ever-changing appearance, she has an opportunity to contemplate the effects of looks, gender, clothes, and other outward indications of who is “inside” the outer trappings. She gets a keen sense of how unfair it is, but has difficulty overcoming her own socialization and “wiring.”

Leviathan doesn’t really provide an answer to the problems presented by A’s situation, but at least he brings them to our attention. This story is an excellent catalyst to get readers to think about social conventions.

Levithan leaves his story open-ended but not in an unsatisfactory way. We can see it could end up better for everyone, but we can also see there is room for a sequel if Levithan wants to write one.

Evaluation: This is a very creative book, although you might feel you are already familiar with much of it if you read the first book. Still, it is a great choice for book clubs.

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To truly appreciate this book, you would have to read the companion book Every Day. That book told the story of A, a person who reappeared every day in someone else’s body to live their life for just that one day. It was an amazing book that allowed the reader to get a sense of what it was like

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to be someone unlike themselves for a day because the characters A inhabited were so diverse. In that book A fell in love with a girl named Rhiannon when he inhabited her boyfriend’s body. The book ended without a resolution to this pairing. This book tells the story of Rhiannon and A from her point of view. It is a compelling read as they couple must deal with so many issues that encompass what love really is, who deserves what in a relationship, how to love those who are so different than what we expect and how to handle all of life’s little roadblocks. I cried at the end, but I am sure this is not the last we hear of Rhiannon and A. I am hoping for another chapter to their tale.

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Parallels the book Every Day from Rihannon's point of view instead of A's.

It's been a while since I read 'Every Day' and I may need to go back and re-read it, now that I've finished this one. 'Another Day' tells the story of the relationship between A and Rhiannon from Rhiannon's POV and while part of me thinks it was unnecessary, the rest of me appreciated being able to

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see things from Rhiannon's perspective. I did think that the relationship between Rhiannon and Justin was a little too bad-high-school-relationship-cliche and there wasn't really enough about her friends, who occasionally slipped into being stock supporting characters ("Best Gay", supportive but slightly estranged BFF, "golden" couple with relationship issues...). And, let's face it, Rhiannon was kind of a self-absorbed asshole with zero self-esteem who was often unpleasant to spend time with. But, that's what life--and especially high school--is like: messy, complicated, ugly, flawed. This is what allows me to dislike several aspects of the book, but still judge the whole to be much greater than the sum of its parts.

I both hope and fear that Mr. Levithan will further explore A's world. Hope, because I want so much for A to find some kind of stability and happiness (or at least contentment) and fear because it would be easy for this story to teeter over into standard teen thriller territory. (Who are the others like A? How did they come to be like this? At what cost does permanent residence in a body come? Is the Reverend helping A or using him/her for his own purposes? Can A and Rhiannon triumph over those who will stop at nothing to have a permanent body? Oh, yeah, I could pretty much outline the cliched novel that could be born from what's been established so far.) But, if there is a third volume, I'll be reaching for it with greedy hands and flipping straight to the end to make sure that Rhiannon and A get a happy ending, even if it's not together.

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I am reviewing these two novels together because they are books one and two; I think they should be only one book. For genre, we have an unusual supernatural romance.

Our main character has given herself/himself a name--A. Yes, one letter--A. You don’t find this out until later in the novel, but

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I’ll go ahead and mention it to make it easier for me. A is gender-less because A wakes up every day (hence the title of the book) in a new body. Her/his belief is to do no harm to the person, so A tries to be respectful and not create problems. Consequently, A has lived many lives--rich, poor, abused, sick, popular, bullied, fat, thin, athletic, etc. A doesn’t know why s/he is like this, but this transient body traveling life is all s/he knows--from birth! S/he cannot have a life because A is always someone else. A’s problem is that he/she has no friends or relationships because it’s impossible. One day, however, s/he meets Rhiannon when awakening in Justin’s body. A is smitten. Every day after that, A finds a way to get to Rhiannon, even telling her the truth about herself, and even if it creates problems for the body she’s inhabiting. Most people never know someone inhabited the body for the day except one person. This one person creates a huge problem for A, which could expose him/her.

The entire novel is from A’s point of view. I’ll be honest--I found it unbelievable that someone could be interested in A because A is always different; s/he changes genders, looks, etc. It truly shows that one would have to love the person and not the package. Rhiannon is a good person; she cares about people and is kind to them. Her boyfriend, however, is not so nice a guy. Justin is domineering, but Rhiannon says that A can’t understand their relationship.

Another Day is the exact same story except from Rhiannon’s point of view. The beginning was a little boring because it was their first date all over again. As the novel progresses, the reader sees how Rhiannon could fall for A. It’s much more believable that she has feelings for A when you hear her point of view.

I think there should have been alternating chapters in one novel, but perhaps having two separate novels made each character more focused for the reader. One student even mentioned that she preferred book two to book one. Both books end with the same cliff hanger, so there is a third book to be published at some point. As of this writing, there is no date. I did see a title: Some Day. This story is definitely an unusual romance but interesting.

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I love the first book in this series and was really hoping I was going to get some answers that had been left open. Instead I got bored by reading about a painfully sad character telling her version of the events from the first book. I really could not have cared less. It was like living my own

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high school years over again, except there was a boy who switched bodies every day.

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Again, I say every teen needs to read David Levithan!
Every Day was thought provoking and very well done, but I always wondered how Rhiannon processed all this. To be a teenager is hard enough. How did she handle A's changing physical appearance? How did she come to love him/her so much?

All my

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questions were answered here in perfect Levithan style!

As the reader, you get an inside view of Rhiannon's struggle to love the person inside, without thought to A's physical appearance.
But true to life, the visual world, with all it's bias, comes crashing through.
The question lies....can we truly love the person inside without the bias of appearance?

I stand and applaud David Levithan for bringing yet another thoughtful, powerful book to the world!

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Another Day is Rhiannon’s, from Every Day, side of the story. I think it qualifies as a companion or even a stand-alone, as it could be read without having read Every Day. I wanted an actual sequel; but after reading this, I was happy to have Rhiannon’s side. It’s really a strange thing to be

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told—A changes bodies every day? I’d have thought I was being punk’d, too. BUT I STILL WANT A SEQUEL! I’ve categorized this book as a romance, so that it is with Every Day, because it is about love, and I don’t have a magical thinking category. The questions remain from the first book; what do you love about a person: looks, interests, or the soul inside? David Leviathan does an excellent job exploring the topic. If you loved Every Day, you’ll want to read Another Day. If you haven’t read Every Day, you could start with this one and pick it up later. They can be read in any order.

Favorite quote:
A says “…I read it a lot, whenever I find it in a library. Partly because I find new things every time I read it, but also because these books are always there for me. All of them are there for me. My life changes all the time, but books don’t change. Your reading of them changes—you can bring new things to them each time. But the words are familiar words. The world is a place you’ve been before, and it welcomes you back.” (loc. 2824)

As a service brat, I can relate to this statement. I wasn’t in a new body every day, like A, but every year I changed schools in the middle of the year. Books were the only friends who ever stayed the same. Everyone else became interchangeable.

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Very disappointed after reading the excellent Every day,I guess I wanted a sequel to further the story on and not a companion piece to Every Day going through the same story with a different P.O.V , I want to read about A not Rhiannon.

It was good getting Rhiannon's perspective on the first book, although there weren't any huge surprises. The thing that stuck out to me about Rhiannon is that she didn't have any hobbies or interests or anything. A was totally obsessed with her, but it was like she didn't know what to do with free

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time. She wasn't in any clubs, she didn't read books, she wasn't even that into any tv shows. It was just kind of bizarre to me. Like she couldn't figure out how to spend time by herself and so she'd spend time with other people just to keep busy.

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Whew! I am listening to this on a car journey and the writing is rivetingly good.

I don't know David Levithan's work, yet here he takes a scalpel to the love sickness that douses the spirit of the high school heroine, Rhiannon.

The object of her obsession is Justin, a tender hearted boy who is so

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much in the throws of his own teenage chaos and angst that he's got to be about as incapable of loving anyone as a prickly pear bush.

Then bam! Fantasy enters the picture 25% of the way into the audiobook. Turns out the temporarily tender hearted Justin was due to Amy, the new girl at school, having occupied Justin's body when he and Rhiannon took their magical afternoon off from school to play hookey at the beach.

Amy, who had taken a liking to Rhiannon, changes bodies every few days!

I will persist a little longer to see if I can tolerate the fantastical...

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