“Every Day”, David Levithan
Published August 28, 2012 • Book 1 of Every Day
Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.
There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.
It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone A wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.
“I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present because that is where I am destined to live.”
Over a decade ago, Every Day felt revolutionary to me. The premise—a being named A who wakes up every day in a different body, living someone else’s life for 24 hours before moving on—blew my mind. It’s romantic and deeply imaginative, and I think it’s what first sparked my love for possession/body-hijacking stories. That fascination eventually led me to books like Claire North’s Touch, which explored the same idea in darker, more intricate ways. At the time, Levithan’s book felt like a revelation: fresh, emotional, and full of questions about identity and love.
Coming back to it as a 36-year-old, though, was a very different experience. I still appreciate the brilliance of the concept, but I found myself frustrated with A. Their obsession with Rhiannon drives them to make reckless, selfish choices that felt excusable when I first read it as a teenager but now come across as thoughtless, even harmful. Because A inhabits other teenagers’ bodies, those decisions don’t vanish when the day ends. The consequences linger for the hosts, and the book doesn’t always grapple with that fallout. It left me uneasy in a way it hadn’t before.
Even with that critique, I still admire what Levithan attempted here. The story is ambitious, philosophical, and tender, asking readers to consider love outside the boundaries of gender, appearance, or permanence. But I think I’d be more drawn to a story that followed an older entity—one who’s lived with this condition for decades or centuries—and dealt with the true weight and ethical implications of that existence. Again, see Touch. As a teen novel, though, Every Day still stands out for its creativity and heart, even if, on reread, it doesn’t hit me quite the same way it did the first time.
More to check out:
Book 2: Another Day — Rhiannon’s POV
Book 3: Someday — The sequel to Every Day and Another Day
Graphic novel illustrated by Dion MBD
2018 movie adaptation starring Angourie Rice as Rhiannon
Content Warnings
Note: This is not an exhaustive list of content and trigger warnings.
suicidal thoughts • body dysmorphia • toxic relationships
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Owned: thrifted paperback