September 16, 2011

Every You, Every Me - David Levithan






Young Adult
Pages: 256
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Release Date: September 13, 2011
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.

WHOA. Dark, compelling, unbelievably haunting and unimaginably brilliant.
I was dizzy from being inside Evan's mind. His character is so utterly palpable that it was scary. I've always loved anything that has to do with 'dangerous' girls. That sort of mysterious, dark and troubled female character that is just as messed up as she is magnetic. Sort of like Alaska in Looking for Alaska. And Ariel's character was mind-blowing. From inside Evan's head she was so many different things, so many different people and yet, I could just picture her perfectly. I was probably as drawn to her as any of the other characters.

I think 'gripping' is an understatement. It was almost physically painful to pull myself out of the book. Such magnificent writing with a relatively simple plot, but it was given in these bits and pieces, photos and moments, memories of half-conversations, taunting the reader until the very last page.

Some parts were even creepy, some pictures and scenes would give me goosebumps but just resulted in me being more and more invested. It was a delicious thrill-ride. I wish I had the time to read it in one sitting because it followed me around when I wasn't reading.

If you like dark, life-shaking contemporary fiction or if you want to read a thriller that will keep you GLUED to it, read this!


6 comments:

  1. I was curious about this book, but after reading your review, I've got to add it to my TBR!

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  2. I TOTALLY AGREE!!! I totally loved this one! Great review!

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  3. Awesome review! Definitely looking forward to this one :)

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  4. I agree with everything you said! Loved this!

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  5. I hate to admit it but I've never read a book by David Levithan before. However, I think this book will be a great place to start! It sounds awesome. Plus any book that's compared to Looking for Alaska is a must read in my eyes. Great review! :)

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