Author: David Levithan
Release Date: August 25, 2015
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Genre(s): Young Adult, Romance, Science Fiction, LGBT
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Spoilers: Moderate
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Almost three years ago now I wrote one of Nerdophiles’ first book reviews on David Levithan’s Every Day. It’s a very emotional book about a very unique protagonist with no permanent form, gender, or even name known only as “A.”
Every day A jumps into a new person’s body and lives a day in their life. A lives the lives of males and females of A’s own age all over the place with no control over what the next day will bring.
Part way through the book A meets Rhiannon after spending a day in her jerk boyfriend’s body and giving her a perfect day with him. A falls in love and, through the course of the book, A and Rhiannon try to figure out what kind of relationship they could even begin to have with A stuck in this predicament.
Another Day is a companion title to Every Day.
Except this time around – instead of focusing on A’s point of view – the book tells the story from Rhiannon’s perspective. Instead of being the person who jumps from body to body every day we’re the person who falls in love with them.
It’s definitely interesting seeing the story from this alternate perspective. I really empathized with Rhiannon in the last book, it has to be incredibly frustrating to be in love with someone you can’t ever be with normally. This book really doesn’t do her thought process justice, though, at times. I felt it was very light on her difficulties accepting A’s different genders and body types. It would have been a lot more interesting to hear more about that than we got.
Instead, we focus more on her everyday life and her relationship with Justin than I had expected. Rhiannon gets fleshed out more fully as she weaves through A’s story. There are several points during the book that reference events in Every Day but don’t flesh them out as much as I might have liked. And the ending to Another Day kind of feels like it robbed us of the full impact of Every Day‘s end in order to set up for a third book.
All in all, Another Day is worth a read if you enjoyed Every Day but it doesn’t have the same impact as the original book did. Honestly, I think we would have done better to leave Every Day as it was on it’s own, but since it seems like a third book is entirely possible you’ll want to read it. If you are going to read Another Day, though, make sure you read Every Day first. I know that David Levithan tried to write it so it could stand on it’s own but it really need the context from A’s perspective.
Every Day fans should enjoy this book but anyone else should probably give that one a read first before tackling Another Day.
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