Another Day, another book by David Levithan – I’m not entirely sure if that was a pun, and if that was intended – but Levithan’s new book is, sadly, mediocre at best.
The question I ask myself every time I open one of his books is why the female characters are always these awkward, bratty girls that are almost too sad to read about. Why does he have to save her all the time? I can see the attempt to break the status quo, and I strongly emphasise the word ‘attempt’. The book begins with Rhiannon spending the day as normal with her boyfriend, but she soon discovers her boyfriend is a totally different person. But only for the day. You see, this is where we meet A. A is… someone. Someone who lives in a different body every day. So imagine this, someone else’s soul or psyche or whatever you want to call it, takes over your body for a whole 24 hours and they have access to every memory you have and your intentions and feelings. It’s scary and not cliché, so for that I applaud Levithan.
The bit where it starts to get annoying is when Rhiannon falls into the same line as Tris in Allegiant by being this whiney brat who can’t seem to do anything for herself and is entirely selfish. I don’t know about you, but to main characters that act like children in YA fiction I say ‘no thanks’. I read the book quite quickly because as I said, the plot was intense and I liked it. I just wish I loved the characters more. A is instantly loveable but after some reflection it’s because you think he’s doing all the right things, which to some extent he is, but why does his flirting and romantic gestures make us like him and hate Rhiannon? I hate to say it but it’s because Rhiannon is literally pathetic. A specific part that really got to me – spoiler alert! – was the scene where she’s kissing A in another body and her boyfriend finds her and instead of defending herself, she lets him stand there and call her all sorts of derogatory names from A-Z. And she cries. She lets the boy who’s been bullying her throughout their relationship bully her one more time when he no longer has anything over her.
The cliché did come through later though, because of course she falls in love with A and suddenly wants everything with A. She can’t get enough of A. She wants to see him everyday. She’s worried he’ll end up far away from her. ‘A. A. A. A. A.’ That’s all she thought about and that’s all Levithan wrote about. She no longer thought about her friends or family, she became no-one with A. She wasn’t even Rhiannon anymore, she became Rhiannon who was in love with the boy who didn’t really exist. Two-dimensional. Words on a piece of paper that meant nothing.The romance consumed her and I’m sorry but I had no sympathy for her when he had to go, because if I was A I’d have gone too. Fast.
I sincerely hope the next one from Levithan will be better and might I say, he should take a leaf out of Jennifer Niven’s book All The Bright Places and let the confused teenagers save each other.
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Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
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