Written by David Levithan
Art by Dion MBD
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
I remember a bunch of body-swap fiction: Vice Versa, Switch, Quantum Leap, Freaky Friday, 13 Going on 30, 17 Again, The Hot Chick, Little, even Being John Malkovich and Big.
Yet the bestseller YA novel Every Day adds its own spin to the body-swap story by transforming it into a teen romance centered on someone who wakes up every day in the body of a different person.
But what happens when A meets and falls in love with one particular girl, one day, and tries to be with her?
Of course, A must have leaped into the body of other kids, but Levithan and MBD capture metaphorically that selfish intensity of love when you’re 17.
Remember thinking you know how it all works and is supposed to be, even though you haven’t done enough living?
Remember being still so new to this thing called romantic love, and even newer to the idea of building a romantic relationship, let alone a life together?
The downside to Every Day’s premise is that a lot of the story revolves around A and Rhiannon having to discuss the metaphysical, epistemological, ethical and philosophical questions raised by a being such as A. The rules around A’s condition unfold throughout the story, including in ways that sound absolutely terrifying as a way to grow up. A has leapt into a new body every day since birth. They leap only into bodies of the same age, and they can access people’s memories and emotions.
I was immediately struck by the queer implications of A and their condition.
First, A requires they/them pronouns because A is a non-binary or even agender person. A says at one point, “I didn’t think of myself as a boy or a girl – I never have. I’ve always thought of myself as a boy or a girl for a day. It’s like a different set of clothes.” A has no attachment to gender because they have no connection to one body or presentation.
Second, from Rhiannon’s point of view, it’s a story of falling in love with someone’s soul regardless of the body that soul is housed in. Yet the story doesn’t dig into those implications for her. It’s implied Rhiannon is straight given what we see when her relationship with A does get physical.
But is she attracted to the different bodies A appears in, or only some of them, according to gender, weight, and more? There’s a difference between it shouldn’t matter and it doesn’t matter at all, right? The story’s one “off night” date happens when A leaps into a tall, fat boy’s body, and it’s tough not to feel the fatphobia as the dialog stumbles to step over it like a puddle on the sidewalk.
Third, Levithan does attempt to give voice to queerness and other issues with some of the bodies A leaps into, including a transgender boy with a girlfriend of his own. However, in this graphic novelization there’s no time to discuss race much, if at all.
Dion MBD has the difficult task of illustrating a story of basically two people talking, scene to scene. Drawing romance requires so much more subtlety, especially when those faces literally change day to day, and they handle that so well.
I do wish for more detail in the backgrounds and layouts. And a fantastical illustration such as morphing black clouds to illustrate one person’s mental illness, appears so on-the-nose ad incongruous to the rest of the graphic novel’s art. So much of this story is A telling us their existence, so it breaks faith with the storytelling to be showy in that moment with otherwise very good messaging about intrusive thoughts, self-harm and seeking help.
Reading Every Day as a 42-year-old, I couldn’t root for A’s pursuit of Rhiannon because I knew their relationship is unsustainable. (Note, I didn’t say the romance is doomed.) Furthermore, even if this were a normal meet-cute of boy-meets-girl, girl-has-a-boyfriend, boy-tries-to-get-the-girl, you think we’d know better about respecting boundaries in our current times.
The great strength of Levithan’s story is that it knows these things, too, and moves accordingly as Rhiannon and A arrive at a resolution that feels a bit sad but also mature and honest.
Every Day plays in the shades of gray, and it’s all the better for it.
Grade: B
