Rating: WARTY!
Read poorly by Alex McKenna.
I liked Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist which was co-written by this author, although I liked the movie better, but when I began listening to David Levithan's Every Day, I really had to wonder whether I would like it or not. I didn't in the end. It's first person PoV which is bad enough. It's narrated by a girl who sounds so young and clueless, but then the character is apparently sixteen, so I guess it's appropriate, but that doesn't make the voice any less obnoxious. I just didn't like it.
I'm not a fan of first person and this story was bordering precipitously on making me nauseous before it had even really got under way. The reader's voice sounded like everything in life was something of a surprise to her. Her voice had this tone like she couldn't even take herself seriously or that maybe she was joking and hoping you wouldn't figure it out before she reached the punch-line. her voice ended every sentence with a muted back-of-the-throat growl which was nauseating in it's metronomic routine, and made me think of nothing other than a little nasty dog which is still trying to decide if it can get away with biting you.
The premise is that this sixteen year old being (I don't know if it's male or female or even if it's human!) wakes up each morning in a different body, spends one day in it, and then moves on. The being appears to be human as far as I can tell, but I'm not sure. Perhaps it's a god or a ghost! On the morning the story begins, she (I'll call it she because of the narrator's voice) wakes up in Justin's body. He is also sixteen years old and in high school. Why everything - gender, skin color, etc, evidently can vary, but age apparently cannot was a bit of a mystery.
The narrator, who was nameless, seemed far too worldly for her age, although she had been around a bit and not in a promiscuous way, but in other ways she seemed absurdly naïve and juvenile. In the early part of the story, she apparently was oblivious to the fact at she was jumping genders. Nothing was mentioned of how she felt about that, or what adventures she had enjoying all these bodies of both genders it was like it was completely immaterial to her and I simply didn't buy that at all. Yes, maybe she became used to it when she was younger, but to offer absolutely no comments, observations, or reminiscences was just poor writing.
At school she (in Justin's body) runs into his girlfriend and takes a liking to her which she deduces Justin didn't really share. He was pretty much just employing Rhiannon as a utility. The narrator started to like her and contrary to her normal behavior - to not get involved - decided to cut class and spend the afternoon at the beach with this somewhat estranged girlfriend, even though it's the tail end of the summer and starting to get chilly.
As I indicated, the story was nauseating as this sixteen-year-old narrator relates things as though she's whatever age David Levithan is, with all these flowery existential and philosophical observations. It felt like reading a John Greene novel, which I've vowed I will never do again. Nor will I read any more David Levithan if they're like this. I am not a fan of writers who blurt out the most mundane pablum as though it's something which one ever conceived before.
It immediately looked like the narrator - whoever or whatever he, or she or it is - would end up with Rhiannon at the closing of the story. That was my wild guess, but it's exactly what happened. This a very short novel, only 7 disks, so I originally decided I could give it a try-out and maybe even finish it, even though it didn't immediately grab me. I failed. It really was tedious to have to listen to this everyday boring nonsense being related like it was a revelation, and it was especially tiresome to have to listen to it in Alex McKenna's grating voice. I cannot recommend this.