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Summary
Summary
In this high school-set psychological tale, a tormented teen named Evan starts to discover a series of unnerving photographs#151;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 M e is a one-of-a-kind departure from a one-of-a-kind author.
Author Notes
David Levithan was born in 1972. He graduated from Brown University in 1994 and is a senior editor at Scholastic. He has written numerous books including Boy Meets Boy, The Realm of Possibility, Every Day, and Another Day.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Levithan (Love Is the Higher Law) is back with an unusual book that has an equally unusual path to creation; in his afterword, Levithan explains that the novel was inspired by the cover photograph, and that the book's mystery was shaped by photographs Farmer supplied him along the way. High school students Evan, who narrates, and Jack, both loved troubled Ariel and feel guilty for the role they played in her being "gone." When Evan finds a photograph in an envelope, it leads him to other images and to the conclusion that someone is stalking them, someone who blames them for what happened to Ariel. Through the haunting photographs, redacted text (much of the text has been struck through, as Evan edits, revises, and negates his thoughts and feelings), readers learn more about Ariel's mental problems and the psychological damage Evan feels in her absence. There is a lot of emotional buildup, and readers may feel let down by the unraveling of the mystery. Even so, this book will challenge readers to reconsider storytelling and what it means to know and truly care for someone. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Levithan once again pushes the limits of YA literature with this photo-enhanced novel in which spare, fragmented bursts of the characters' thoughts combine with Farmer's color photographs to create a unique psychological thriller. Evan is already suffering from guilt since Ariel had to go away what that means is intentionally kept vague when he starts receiving anonymous photographs related to that pivotal day. To solve the mystery, he enlists the help of Ariel's former boyfriend, Jack, who seems to be moving on already. Even Evan replays his unrequited love for Ariel and begins his own downward spiral into depression and isolation. As readers slowly learn more about the complex relationship among this trio and the tragedy that Ariel experienced, Evan's strikethrough text in the narration reveals his true thoughts and feelings. Even the photographs become symbols of how well or how little we really know those around us, even those we love. While the concept of the novel (explained in concluding author's and illustrator's notes) is often more engaging than the actual prose, teens will still find the story hauntingly beautiful.--Leeper, Angela Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Writing in a first-person journal format, complete with crossed out words and sentences, 16-year-old Evan invites readers into his confused existence as he mourns the loss of the girl he considered his best friend. Whatever happened to Ariel tore apart their friendship and left Evan and Ariel's boyfriend, Jack, bereft. Evan seems to teeter on the edge of sanity, musing about fractals and binary numbers and "so many frequencies playing in my mind." When photographs with ties to Ariel begin appearing on Evan's route home and in his locker, he and Jack try to track down the connection. A lead via Facebook turns out to be a dead end, and the locations show that the photographer must be intimately familiar with Ariel's life. The short chapters and the photographs themselves make this a quick read for most students. Plot holes may rankle some readers: Evan trashes Ariel's bedroom and no one notices? He is nearly run over by a train and there are no consequences? Some readers may feel a tad cheated by the ending, which introduces a heretofore unknown character. Nonetheless, the idea of a photographic novel is intriguing, and readers are likely to get caught up in the drama. Suggest it to those who enjoyed Matt de la Pena's I Will Save You (Delacorte, 2010) or the verse books by Ellen Hopkins.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
High-schooler Evan blames himself for the breakdown of his close friend Ariel.When a mysterious photographer strategically plants pictures of him and his missing best friend Ariel where he will find them, Evan starts to unravel with paranoia, guilt and grief. He enlists Jack, his close friend and Ariel's former boyfriend, to help find out who's sending the photographs and why they're being stalked. Readers will immediately recognize Levithan's familiar writing style, characterizations and themes: his cadences and wordplay, the complex connections between characters, the stream-of-conscious inner dialogues. What they won't recognize is the messy, stilted, stop-and-go plotting characterized by Evan's jumbled thoughtssome of which he decides he wants to express, while others are crossed out. While this conceit intensified Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls (2009), its far more extensive use here only succeeds in confounding readers. Much of the drama and mystery behind what's happening to Evan and what he's going through is extinguished in a cloud of word repetition and jumbled back-and-forths between the present and the past. Farmer's photos are appropriately haunting and help move things along, but a simplistic and unsatisfying conclusion will have readers wondering why they went through it all in the first place.A sadly disjointed attempt at a thriller by a celebrated romantic. (Thriller. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 It was your birthday. The first one after you [left vanished] were gone. When I woke up, I [dreamed] thought about other birthdays. Ones where we'd been together. Like two years ago. Freshman year. [When I had you all to myself.] I asked you what you wanted and you said roses, and then you said, "But not the flowers." So I spent weeks gathering presents: a polished piece of rose quartz, White Rose tea, a ceramic tile I'd bought at the White House in fourth grade featuring the Rose Garden. A novel called Rose Sees Red, a biography of Gypsy Rose Lee, a mix of songs by bands called Blue Roses, the Stone Roses, White Rose Movement. Then I rigged your locker with pulleys, so when you opened it, all the objects rose. I'm not sure you got that part, not until I told you. But you were so happy then. [This was before happiness became so complicated. This was when you could ask me for something, I could give it to you, and the world would be right.] And then there was last year. [You went out with Jack at night, but I at least had you for the afternoon.] I asked you what you wanted and you said you didn't want anything. And I told you I wasn't planning on giving you anything; I was planning on giving you something. That whole week, we started to divide things into those two categories: anything or something. A piece of jewelry bought at a department store: anything. A piece of jewelry made by hand: something. A dollar: anything. A sand dollar: something. A gift certificate: anything. An IOU for two hours of starwatching: something. A drunk kiss at a party: anything. A sober kiss alone in a park: something. We ended up spending the afternoon walking around, pointing at things and labeling them anything or something. [Should I have paid closer attention? Written them down? No, it was a good day. Wasn't it?] At the end, you pointed to me and said something. And I pointed back and said something. [I held on to that.] Now it was a year later. I wished you a happy birthday. [That word again. Happy. It's a curse. The pursuit of happiness makes us deeply unhappy. It's a trap.] Before anything else happened, there was me in bed, thinking of [who] you [used to be]. I don't want you to think I forgot. 1A I see too many things at once. I notice shadows. Think about them. And while I do that, I miss other things. Important things. I can't stop looking, even when I [want to] have to stop. I get lost in ifs. They are always there [if if if if] and I should only be able to tune in to them if I'm on the right frequency. But that's the thing about me: The frequencies don't divide. [That day was your birthday in my head, but it wasn't really your birthday anywhere else.] I wanted to tell people at school that it was your birthday [but I didn't want to get their reaction when I brought it up]. I started to think it was like a surprise party, only they weren't telling either of us. They were going to surprise both of us. [I didn't have this thought for long. It was really just there for a moment.] I pretended like it was a normal day [without you there]. And like all other normal days, I made it through to the other end. [It can be done, you see.] There are things you decide [and there are decisions you don't even know you are making]. That afternoon, I decided to cut through the woods on my way home. [As I headed that way, I looked at the ground, not the branches or the sky. If I'd stopped to talk to someone after school instead of heading straight home--if I'd had someone to talk to--maybe someone else would have gotten there first. I didn't decide to see the envelope.] I saw the envelope sitting there on the ground. [I should have left it alone. I should have been left alone. I was alone.] I stopped and picked it up. From the weight, I knew there was something inside. I decided to open it. [I wasn't thinking of you.] It was so small. I had to focus. I couldn't focus without telling myself to focus. [The eyes take in the colors and the shapes. The images go to the brain for translation.] First I saw the trees, then the sky. It didn't look familiar. [The brain cross-checks the translation against the memories it's stored.] I fixed on the four bare trees, standing like orphaned table legs. I knew those trees--I looked away from the photo and there they were in real life, no more than twenty feet away from me. I walked over to the nearest tree, but that didn't tell me anything. I looked at the envelope, but it was completely blank. [No address, no name on the front. I looked.] I almost put it back. But the sky was getting gray, almost as gray as the sky in the photo. Leaving it on the ground didn't seem right. It was going to rain. I saw the other trees. I held the photo up against real life, figured out my place in it. But there was something I was missing. [Or maybe there was something extra. I was here. I was not in the photograph. Therefore the photograph was then, and I was now.] I turned around and saw my school. Its windows. Watching me. Revealing nothing. [Anything? Something?] I put the photograph back in the envelope. [I didn't put the envelope back on the ground.] I kept it. And I might have forgotten about it. I might have just thrown it out, or let it stay in my backpack until it became crumpled and torn and wrecked on the bottom with all the pieces of unchewed gum slipped loose from their wrappers. I might have just shown it to Jack or someone else the next day at school. [In another time, I would have shown it to you first.] We would have shrugged and moved on to the next thing. It would have been a short, short story. Random, we would have said. Random. Meaning: Completely without a pattern. or Completely without a recognizable pattern. [Meaning: Either the event is outside any pattern. or We are unable to comprehend the pattern.] I folded the envelope in half, careful that the photo wasn't caught in the crease. (I try to be a careful person. Most of the time my carelessness is completely unintentional.) I looked around one more time, stood in the center of the bare trees, at the exact center. Then I headed home and I lost focus and the barrage in my head started again. [You will never be happy again. Why do you even think about it?] Five minutes after I picked up the photo, it rained. [This pain is all that you have.] I think: If I'd been five minutes later, it would have been raining if it had been five minutes later, I would have been dashing through the rain, not noticing if I'd been five minutes later, the envelope and the photo would have been soaked, ruined. I think: If I'd been five minutes later, none of this would have happened. I know: It probably would have happened anyway. Just not like this. 1B I woke up at two in the morning, feeling guilty that I hadn't asked you what you wanted this year. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from Every You, Every Me by David Levithan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
