Genre: YA Contemporary Thriller
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Description (taken from David Levithan's website):
In this high school-set psychological tale, a tormented teen named Evan starts to discover a series of unnerving photographs—some of which feature him. Someone is stalking him . . . messing with him . . . threatening him. Worse, ever since his best friend Ariel has been gone, he’s been unable to sleep, spending night after night torturing himself for his role in her absence. And as crazy as it sounds, Evan’s starting to believe it’s Ariel that’s behind all of this, punishing him. But the more Evan starts to unravel the mystery, the more his paranoia and insomnia amplify, and the more he starts to unravel himself. Creatively told with black-and-white photos interspersed between the text so the reader can see the photos that are so unnerving to Evan, Every You, Every Me is a one-of-a-kind departure from a one-of-a-kind author.
Can we just admit that being a teenager is one of the hardest things we'll ever do in our lives? So much emotion. Not enough understanding. Friends. Enemies. Trying to figure out who you want to be. Trying to understand yourself and life. It's just hard. Period.
Ever since Evan's friend, Ariel, disappeared, he's been trying to move on with life. And yet, he somehow feels like it's his fault for Ariel's disappearance. And once these random pictures start showing up, we see the guilt push forward. But we also see Evan trying to rekindle friendships as he tries to figure out what his role is with all of this.
This book is a super short read. And on the surface? I didn't care about this book. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was sweet. We see various people in our day-to-day activities, and they will always see a different me than the me someone else will see. And how we perceive these interactions will determine how we interact with others: who we'll love, who we'll hate. I don't know. Maybe it's all too much transcendentalism for me.
This book definitely requires reading between the lines. And thinking about the big picture instead of just the story in the book. I think some people are going to like it, and some will make kindling out of it. Still, the pictures were fun to look at.
I read Every Day by David Levithan and seemed to be one of only a few who hated it, it's kind of put me off reading anything else by him. This sounded quite interesting but it seems like another hit or miss book. Great review, will definitely avoid this one.
ReplyDeleteI liked the premise of Everyday but I found the book slow and unsatisfying
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