ANOTHER DAY
David Levithan
In this compelling companion book Levithan (co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson with John Green and Two Boys Kissing) tells Rhiannon’s side of the story from Every Day as she seeks to discover the truth about love and how it can change you.
Every day is the same for Rhiannon. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidelines by which to live: Don’t be too needy. Avoid upsetting him. Never get your hopes up.
Until the morning everything changes. Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day which Justin doesn’t remember the next morning. Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Then, one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person . . . wasn’t Justin at all.
Every day was a wonderful, complex challenging read and it’s interesting that Levithan feels the need to add another book to what already felt like a seriously complete piece of writing, but there it is and here is it. This book, which reviews the previous novel but through the eyes of Rhiannon, well not just through her eyes but her utter point of view, is both enlightening and restricting but it does relentlessly serve the steady careful plot of the book. Giving the same story this very different viewpoint and dialogue is startling, and moves both these novels off into a more Meta state, not sequel or prequel to each other but more in orbit around a common sense of gravity, plots, actions, reactions and feelings being tied to the same points in space and time but all other things in flux. He’s nowt if not subtly clever is Mr Levithan and speaks with his confident voice to sophisticated young reader who relish the opportunity to engage with their reading.
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David Levithan will be attending an event on Wednesday, August 19, 7.30pm at Waterstones, Brighton, 71-74 North Street.
Levithan’s books are always easy to read, he takes great care with his prose and ideas so that they tumble into your head no matter how abstract or difficult they may at first seem; This book is no different to his other young adults writing and he shows the same consideration for the protagonists thoughts and feelings as he does the readers need to process them in good time to understand what’s going on. You can enjoy this book without having read Every Day but it will throw the events of Every Day into a difference perspective if you do, and that’s wonderful as I loved Every Day, but this book, giving as it does a slower more considered insight into the shared story of these books also gives far more emotional depth to a character who I’d thought of as rather dull. It suggests profound and engaging ideas and the emotionally intelligent heft of the characters reflection is inspiring. The authors adroit handling of the various stages of relationships and the depths of feeling that are navigated by the bewildering events and characters in this books also gives young adults a book on the mysteries of love and seeking companionships that is as wide, encompassing of difference and honest as its companion novel.
Another Day is an interesting read, a book I didn’t see the need for which shoves me confidently across the bench and makes its own honest space with a clear honest voice, sits down next to me and grips me to the – suggestive of yet another book to come– end.
Out August 24
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Hardcover
Young Adult
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