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- a perfect day 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.
There seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether this book is a sequel to Every Day or not, well I can tell you now it isn't a sequel. This book gives Rhiannon's perspective to the story, now before you turn away and say "oh well, I know what happens in the first book so what's the point in reading Another Day?." I can assure you this book gives a whole different spin on the story.
I'd like to also point out that it wouldn't necessarily matter if you read Another Day first before Every Day and the author points this out in the front of the book.
Looking through the eyes of Rhiannon this book conveys a lot of important matters of unhealthy relationships and more interestingly gender identity and sexual preferences. If anything it made me enhance my belief of love being in any shape or form, it was comforting but incredibly confusing for Rhiannon which is obviously understandable.
She meets "A" someone who isn't referred to as a he or a she ends up trapped in Rhiannon's boyfriend Justin's body, who is rather a nasty character in the book. With "A" spending one day posing as her boyfriend, Rhiannon sees a ray of hope for their relationship. To me Justin is clearly a boy who just likes a girl on his arm to show off and doesn't have much consideration as to the feelings of others around him, he's young and hormonal and is more interested in the sexual side of their relationship compared to Rhiannon. She constantly feels that she's letting Justin down and tip-toeing around him which isn't healthy at all! In a relationship in my opinion, you're supposed to support each other and be selfless, in their relationship this is very much one-sided unfortunately.
Discovering "A" is someone that hops from body to body every day uncontrollably, he/she we don't know appears in all kinds of bodies- some worse off than others which for me was a symbol in the book to show that love is all around and in everyone. To judge someone for their looks is rather a silly thing and Levithan expresses this so well it made my heart tight with happiness, but although this sounds lovely we see from Rhiannon's perspective of the confusion with regards to her sexual preferences. When "A" appears as a girl Rhiannon is unsure of her feelings because as far as she's aware she likes guys not girls, so understandably this is all rather confusing for her to take in.
The best thing about this novel is its message of love and understanding. Rhiannon realises what's good for her and she comes away with more of an open mind towards relationships and love in general.
It's as if "A" is a symbol, a kind of angel sent to Rhiannon or an imaginary friend to help open her eyes to things she hadn't realised about herself and what greater happiness is out there for her. To find this happiness she needs to make a change as to what's making her unhappy, i.e. her boyfriend Justin. I doubt that this was Levithan's aim for the novel but it's just something that kept coming to mind as I was reading through the book. So that's my little spin on it I guess.
Levithan has done a wonderful job with this second novel, I felt so comforted reading this book as I did with the first and they're both really great books that I would recommend to anyone. I think it's a great young adult book that brings you comfort and reassurance for anyone who is perhaps scared of coming out of/getting in a relationship or coming to terms with their sexuality, I think this is a supportive book for all of those terms. Although this may seem like a serious book which I guess the themes are, but it's light-hearted, witty and romantic!
As always Levithan never seems to disappoint me and I can't fault this book and after reading this I feel the need to re-read some more Levithan.
