Every You, Every Me

August 15, 2011
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.

September 1, 2011

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 thoughts—some 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 (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 1, 2011

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

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2011
Grades 8-12 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 awaywhat that means is intentionally kept vaguewhen 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 wellor how littlewe 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)