5 Followers
10 Following
mandafofanda

Mandafofanda Reads Lots

The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no?

And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?
Doesn't that make life a story?

- Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Every Day - David Levithan You know when you see those TV show or movie casts where the director made it a point to be inclusive! to the extent that every character is just a representation of a person/gender/race/etc.? Like, Jock Boy, Nerd Girl, Gay Boy, Asian, Black, Anorexic, Overweight! It's one of the reasons why I hated the movie Valentine's Day so much. It's like the character is just there so that they can bring up issues specific to their type and so their actual personality and character become second to providing an outlet for whatever ideas the author wants to express. This happens a lot in Every Day.

However, the concept for this book was definitely interesting, even if I found the actual book a bit less than compelling while reading it. Levithan brought up a lot of good points regarding gender, equality and morality. For example,
It's only in the finer points that it gets complicated and contentious, the inability to realize that no matter what our religion or gender or race or geographic background, we all have about 98 percent in common with each other. yes, the differences between male and female are biological, but if you look at the biology as a matter of percentage, there aren't a whole lot of things that are different. Race is different purely as a social construction, not as an inherent difference. And religion--whether you believe in God or Yahweh or Allah or something else, odds are that at heart you want the same things. For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that's different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that.

In any case, I think that, like [a:Neal Shusterman|19564|Neal Shusterman|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1246977170p2/19564.jpg], Levithan is one of those authors who like to think really hard about those What If? questions and write books that really delve into them and bring up interesting and thoughtful ideas. However, I wish I wish that I was able to get a much better feel for the characters in this book so that I was more emotionally invested in their story.