Every Day

David Levithan's novel Every Day is profoundly moving. The idea is refreshingly original - it's about a person who has no body. The person, A, wakes up each day in someone else's body. They are all the same age as A, who ages and is 16 in the novel.

Think about what that allows Levithan to do. A is not male or female, black or white, fat or skinny, attractive or ugly. A has no family, no long-term plans, no consistency. This makes for a fascinating story - A sees life through many different eyes. A knows what it's like to be stared at for your stunning to beauty. To receive disgusted looks because of your obesity. To see how colors look different through different eyes. To live a day in the life of someone so depressed they're considering suicide.

It makes you question how you look at other people. We judge so much based on looks, but why? They don't dictate who we are. We don't want others to judge us that way. Yet we can't help it. It made me feel guilty for not being able to see past the outside of people, something I've been trying to work on anyway, but we do it all the time, without even realizing it.

A has the power to change lives, but must be careful because with that responsibility can come great guilty, and lots of questions if you changed things for the better or worse. But what should A do when A falls in love? How can A sustain love when A changes bodies each day? I'm not spoiling anything - read it for yourself to find out!

With a premise like this, if you're like me, you have a lot of questions about how it all works. Levithan responds by asking how any of us are here. We can't really, 100 percent know. No matter your beliefs and faith, it's just that - faith. Thinking about it that way made me enjoy the book more, because I didn't focus too much on how it all works. We can't know all the answers. We just know that we exist. Like Descartes said - "I think therefore I am."

The book also shows how vital long-term relationships and plans are to life. How horrible would it be to not have that? To wake up every day as a child with a different set of parents? To not be sure if you'll ever see any of the people you saw today again, and if you did, they wouldn't recognize you. It would be so lonely. I love to travel and sometimes get frustrated at the monotony of many days, wishing I could travel and do different things each day. This was a good reminder to appreciate that - it's better than the alternative, to have no roots, no real home.

This was a quick, entertaining, and thought-provoking read. I strongly encourage you to give it a try!