Every Day

I cannot let myself just put this book down after finishing it. It is the book I cannot avoid the temptation of writing my own review. Normally, I am not thrilled about young adult novel much, but, of course, this book is an exception. I have got this novel several months ago in the form of first draft with its title being just ‘A’, the name of the main character. Calling him just a character sounds inappropriate somehow. The character of ‘A’ in this book is not just a character, he is individual, human being, and has personality. You’ll understand what I’m babbling about after reading it.

Title: Every Day

Author: David Levithan

Pages: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Published: August 28th 2012

ISBN: 0307931889

Language: English

Goodreads’s rating: 4.56 out of 5 from 9 ratings (24 May, 2012)

Every day is what a presumably sixteen year old boy has to conquer. The boy calls himself ‘A’, the name he chose several years ago for keeping him sane. A is a drifter. He does not know why and there is no explanation of it. He just ‘drifts’ into new bodies every day. Every morning, he wakes up in a new body, a new life, or the old life of someone else. Every body he drifts into is around his age. He had no idea what happened at first. He just thought this was how life went on for everybody, but soon, he realized it was not. Everybody was talking about tomorrow together. That was when he knew something was off.

A has his own rule; do not interfere other people’s lives. He leaves the body every midnight the way it has been. He does not try to change and he does not try to make anything better, just keep it not to get worse while he is in control. He has many bad experiences trying to interfere the lives of bodies’ owners. However, his rule is forgotten the minute he sees Rhiannon, Justin whose body he’s applying’s girlfriend. He does not only see the sadness and lack of confidence in Rhiannon, but the beauty and brave heart also. He lets himself, or in this case, Justin’s self, surrounding her. He thinks he loves her. He knows he loves her. He builds hopeless hope. Every time he changes bodies, he tries to get back to her. And that causes a lot of interruption in the body owners’ lives. He desperately tries to hold her with him, but she’s slipping away. She cannot do what he wants her to do. She cannot be who she should be. And when A finds out that maybe there’re other people out there being like him, the drifter, it’s when he has to choose which is more important; his life and love, or other people’s.

You can say that Every Day is a unisex novel. It represents many types of love as many as a book can convey including love in families, friends, opposite sex, same sex, and humanity. It’s universal love. No matter what you are, no matter what you do, there’ s love everywhere although sometimes you cannot see it. There’s also the complicated relationship of human. The story does not sensationalize the acts or the situation or the physical excitement much, but it drives you deep into emotional experiences, the profundity of human psyche, the delicacy of minds, the understanding of the world and people surrounding, and the concern of physical and internal appearances. But you are also to be aware that a novel and its story are just the opinion of the writer conveying through characters’ minds which may or may not be agreed by your own opinion or the common regulations.

The character of ‘A’ is unisex. He does not know and does not choose to be male or female. The idea of sex and what rules it do not affect him and it’s understandable considering the way he ‘grows up’. Drifting to many teenagers’ bodies lets him show the different sensations and emotions and the process of minds of adolescents. It represents teenage crisis, the troubles of the individuals or the people surrounding them. Adolescence is the age of seeking for individuality and departing from society. They need to rebel against the conformity framing and controlling their lives. The other characters are dimensional. Rhiannon, for instance, has human capability and personality. She is dubious, realistic, and slightly self-absorbed. Although they’re in the age which sees love as the whole universe, the author pushes the reality to be alive in their fancy world. Love is not the conqueror. The conqueror is us, what we decide to do to overcome the burden. He defines a lot of things in different ways in this book and demonstrates the ugly truth that ‘life must go on’. The occurrences in daily life, human logic, living together, and human connection are also issued.

The story does not contain only profound thoughts, there’re also sense of humor and other emotions in young adult novels’ concern. The story is comprehensible, not too serious. It’s the book that has you sit and think, not drive you with all the action pact. The ending is perfect for me. It’s touching, gripping, and selfless. The choices are laying for us to choose and it depends on us to make the ultimate sacrifice or let the devil comfortable consume us. This book impresses me as a young adult novel can do. I don’t know if there’s a sequel but hope.

I Hunt Killers

I am proud to present this book! It hooked me from the short overview the agency gave us, the very start. The book has not been published yet but its time is pretty near and it also gets good feedback in Goodreads and from worldwide. It’s so hot, as if being the flame itself, to be honest; everyone wants to read a copy. I’ve got this book in PDF file as the final, translatable manuscript so I guess it’s almost the same as the published copies. The author commits such a not inconsiderable success.

Title       : I Hunt Killers

Author  : Barry Lyga

Pages    : 368

Publisher : Little, Brown

Published : April 3^rd 2012

ISBN      : 0316125849

Language : English

Goodreads’s rating         : 4.09 out of 5 from 79 ratings (16 Mar, 2012)

Jasper Francis Dent, or Jazz for short, is a charming seventeen-year-old boy, but what makes him different from any other ordinary popular guys in high school is his father. Billy is the notorious, legendary serial killer of Lobo’s Nod, the imperceptible, tranquilly small town. Most people in US know his name. He has a group of fan club and websites dedicated to him. He is the living nightmare emerged from Hades to many people with his statistic victim up to hundred, but not to his son. Billy raised Jazz with gentle cruelty, something Jazz misconstrues as love. Jazz’s mother has ‘gone away’ since he was eight. The boy is not convinced that mommy had run away, instead, he truly believes that his Dear Old Dad had killed her. That is the tragic for him. Jazz has to suffer another tragic, though. Since his father was arrested four years ago, he has to try to live on his own and convince the social worker that his senile dementia grandmother is capable of taking care of him.

Jazz is doing well at that part; he is a great liar, the second greatest liar to his father. He can manipulate people. But the thing he is really suffering from is the sociopathic part in him. He doesn’t know that a look in people’s eyes means sorrow. However, he has good friends to help him get better conscious mind, Howie and Connie. But his freaking ordinary routine is interrupted when a new serial killer happens to wander around the town. And it’s obvious like a super spotlight on billboard for Jazz that the killer is following his father’s artistically meticulous murder procedures. Jazz has some egregious feeling that everyone will turn their eyes on him in fierce accusation now. He is the son of that vile Billy and he is absolutely capable of it. Suddenly, Jazz is not certain with his self-control anymore. It stirs some part in him. His future is fragile and he doesn’t know if he did kill someone already. Anyway, he is sure of one thing; he needs to catch this killer. But the killer has his own agenda for him, too. Will he outwit this killer and identify him before he will be approached by this very killer?

Well, this book actually attacks me with the plot, I mean, the sociopathic plot. I’m bleeding now. It quite reminds me of the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay (Dexter is freaking hot with his…freaking but simple mind). Jazz is a replica of Dexter in mini version. I can say bad boys are attractive. But Jazz is not exactly bad, neither is Dexter.

Although the book is considered to be in Young Adult category because of the protagonist’s age, somehow, that’s not the appropriated category (and I’m grateful for that). I Hunt Killers has an intense protagonist’s voice. The style of writing, language, and the processes of mind of the characters are rich. My attention in this book falls to the characters mostly. Jazz is adorable, especially the conflict in his mind. His little sociopathic ability is sometimes almost funny. He convinces that he is crazy or going to be crazy, but he is totally in control and has good nature obviously. And he manages to be like other teenagers; he makes mistakes, bad decisions, and has flaws, with the seventeen years of experience in life (and thirteen years of it under psychopathic father’s fault treat. Another interesting character is Conny, Jazz’s teenage girlfriend. I appreciate her authority and logic she tries to put on Jazz. These kids are not mere teenagers. Of course, there is identity crisis (although in some different way for Jazz, his crisis is, um, quite a real crisis). They also wrestle with life, endeavor to understand what’s going on in someone’s mind and maintain the ethics and virtue of social awareness. There is sex, violence, and death mixed up in every part. And, oh, the homosexual element, sorry, I cannot help the temptation of pointing it out although it’s the least bit 😛 Anyway, not that this book is too complex and profound. The murder clue and investigation are not too subtle. Your nerve won’t be explode and your brain won’t be cooked as if you’re reading in a microwave. However, it’s not Young Adult literary, though, as I’ve said, you will not find such oh-I-love-you-so-much or I-can’t-live-without-you scenes. It’s dark, but quite light also, not too dark. It’s the first book in the series so I guess the next one will be more intense and purposeful. I can’t wait for the next book 🙂

Also, it has been optioned for television series. For more information –> http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118040463 .

“Warner Bros. TV has acquired rights to young-adult novel “I Hunt Killers” and plans to develop the project as a series with producer Joel Silver…”

Wow, I’m looking forward to the series!

Hello, hi, hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night

This is my very first blog, first post, and first…um…introduction?

I have A LOT of things to write, but I don’t know how to start. I basically use this blog for posting some book reviews and maybe something a little interesting (for me) in my life, so that I can remember I have had those days. Anyways, English is not my mother tongue. And I have to admit that after learning it for nearly 20 years  (including my kindergarten A, B, C~~), English is still my weakness and in ‘developing’ status. Don’t ask me why I type English on my blog. This way I can expand my horizon and, yeah, according to its developing status, I should keep developing it, shouldn’t I? I also need to be active since my life seems to be gradually stagnant. I’m just afraid that after a while, I’ll find myself just sitting still, finding no purpose or goal of my life. That would be sooooo lifeless.

I’m considering this blog to be book reviews because my life happens to base on loads of books now. My job requires me to read hundreds of books. And I also had to read many books when I was studying too. Books in this case are novel books, fictions, literature, and so on. I’ve read many good books and a lot of bad ones. But don’t worry, I won’t review them so long as I did in my exams. That will take me ages to analyze and synthesize every important detail and aspect. I guess I’ll go to them superficially ( please, professors, don’t be shame on me).

That’s it. This is my first introduction… Ok, I didn’t introduce anything. I just draw the line of this blog. And again, my English skills are limited, so I ap0logize for any mistakes and lack of expressions.

….What should I say in the end? ….Thanks 🙂 . . . . . ?

PS. As I said ‘book reviews’, it also basically implies that I have read the story all over. If you need to know the end of the story I have reviewed, leave your e-mail in the comment section and I will give you the privilege of knowing the end. I understand all your needs as I can be such an impatient reader who flips to the last page of a book before even starting it too :p