Inventive teen romance blurs notions of gender, reality.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 14+?
Any Positive Content?
Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
some
A teenage drinker wakes up with a hangover and remembers causing a fatal accident. "A" wakes up in the body of a drug addict and struggles with the cravings/needs of the person's body for a day. Teens drink alcohol at a party. The older brother of a girl whom "A" inhabits smokes pot while driving his sister to school.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
"A" kisses the boyfriends or girlfriends of a few of the bodies he/she inhabits. A couple of times, a kissing session gets somewhat intense, and once when "A" is with Rhiannon, they disrobe from the waist up. Once "A" wakes up as a girl next to her girlfriend in bed. It's mentioned that Rhiannon has had sex with Justin, but that's not described.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
One of "A"'s host bodies, a heavy metal dude, is physically attacked by a jealous boyfriend and ends up with a few cuts and bruises. One of the bodies "A" inhabits is a teenage drinker who remembers causing a fatal car accident; her memories of the crash are brief but graphic. One person wants to commit suicide. A pot smoker gets into a fistfight with a drug-dealing school mate.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
Every Day's fantastical premise -- that a person with a soul, conscience, and intellect inhabits a different body each day -- allows the book to explore various teen lifestyles and issues. The book shows the power of love and the relative happiness of teens with healthy lifestyles and happy home lives.
Positive Role Models
some
Because "A" inhabits a different body every day, the book contains a multitude of parent/child relationships. Most of the parents are loving, engaged, and supportive, while a few are either too rigid or too out of touch. "A" himself is a caring, conscientious person who tries to balance feelings of responsibility toward his host people with a compulsion to be with the girl he loves.
Educational Value
a little
Readers will learn a little about geography around Baltimore and about high school life and relationships. They'll also explore diverse family situations and relationships of different American teens.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that David Levithan's best-selling novel Every Day is about a character called "A," who's a whole person emotionally and intellectually but wakes up every morning in the body of a different teen. Working from this premise, the author shows a broad variety of teen lifestyles, diverse sexual orientations, and gender identifications, as well as different approaches to parenting. The book shows teens engaging in some sexual behavior: kissing intensely and partially undressing. There's also some teen drinking, and one character wakes up with a terrible hangover, tortured by the memory of a drunk-driving incident that caused a fatality. Some teen characters abuse narcotics and marijuana, and there are a couple of fistfights between teen boys.
VIOLENCE/HORROR: Although, there is no description of violence, this story includes “A” in a body of a teen girl who wants to commit suicide and is beyond depressed (she gets help though). Also, this includes sort-of an abusive relationship.
SEX/NUDITY: This book does contain some sexual themes. A teen is described as “horny” and “A” is in a body of a “sexy” girl. In that plot, the “sexy” girl tries to seduce another teen boy. Lots of flirting, and a brief make-out scene where both partners take each other’s clothes off. Also includes mild kissing.
LANGUAGE/PROFANITY: Insulting words such as: “a-s”, “hell”, “the devil possessed him”, “bi-ch”, “s-ut”, and “horny”.
DRINKING/DRUGS: There is teen partying where a lot of teens get high and drunk. A boy suddenly becomes “crazy” and the blame is because he was high. It mentions he was tested for drugs. Smoking is infrequent, but still described.
MESSAGE/EDUCATION: This story revolves around love, and how no matter what someone’s appearance/gender is, love is still love!
It is a great book, but it involves a lot of mature content such as sex, drugs, abuse, and the “Gender X” topic that should not be read until you are at an age that you can fully understand and make decisions about those things.
What's the Story?
EVERY DAY is about a character called "A," an emotionally and intellectually fully formed, genderless person who wakes up every day inhabiting the body of a different teen; for one day only, "A" becomes part of that person's home, life, and family. Despite this fantastical premise, "A" faces very realistic -- and very troubling -- situations involving family life, romantic relationships, and substance abuse. In the course of the novel, "A" reveals his/her secret to two people: one, a girl he loves; the other, a boy to whom he feels he owes reparations. In different ways, each of these revelations makes "A" quite vulnerable and ever more determined to find a way for love to transcend his/her troubled existence.
David Levithan's novels usually have some sort of hook, and this one is so clever. "A"'s nonphysical self is neutral of gender, sexual orientation, and race, and yet he/she embodies so many different American experiences. It's a fascinating premise, made believable by the strong, consistent voice Levithan gives his character and the book's realistic emotions and events.
Serious issues like teen drug and alcohol use, sexuality, and first love are all familiar young-adult fare, but they're addressed in such a novel way here that none of the heavy stuff seems the least bit tired or overwrought. This is a wonderful, original book that's equal parts fantasy and super-reality.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about whether "A" is a boy or a girl. Do you have a strong impression one way or the other? What is the book saying about gender identification?
Every Day blends a fantastical premise with realistic situations. What effect does this have on you as a reader?
Available on:
Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
Last updated:
August 15, 2021
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