YA, Why Not?: Every You, Every Me by David Levithan

December Defies Definition

One of my favorite things about YA lit: its flexibility and willingness to think outside the box. This month I'm focusing on titles that are written in a non-traditional way. One plays with typography and space. One crosses out text to show thought, but not speech. One is written entirely in verse style. Technology continues to provide us with new ways of telling stories, and these are just a few. What is your favorite?

Everything is different without you. It's been a year, your birthday again...~~I'm not thinking of you again. I'm not.~~ Walking to school, and I find an envelope just sitting there in the woods. Inside was a picture...of the same woods. Where was it from? Who left it here? ~~I want to show it to you.~~

The next day, there's another picture. This time it surprised me. It was of me. I never let anyone take my picture. Except you. I showed it to Jack. He said it was freaky. Freaky. Another after school, nailed to a telephone pole. A picture of a bridge. So I went there, and I found another one. A picture of someone taking a picture. Someone else was there that day...

In my locker, another picture: this time of you. Not shoved between the cracks, but taped up; someone broke in to put this here. But I had never seen this picture. "~~I have never seen this photo before. I have never seen this photo before~~," (Levithan pg. 52, 2011). How? I knew you better than anyone. Me and Jack. But he doesn't know either. Weren't you the one who said, "He'll never know me like you do," (pg. 61)?

The next photograph showed up in Jack's locker. A picture of a grave. Your first kiss with Jack. ~~Are you punishing us?~~ It had to be someone who knew you, someone with whom you shared a connection...but who? ~~And why don't I know?~~ And why?

More pictures appear holding images of you and someone else. "Sparrow" it says on the back. I'm starting to lose it, ~~I've been losing it ever since you disappeared~~. Jack doesn't want to talk about it, he wants to 'move on' and he accuses me of being the one who is doing this. ~~He just wants to turn it off, all the hurt and pain and forget you...but I can't~~.

Evan and Jack tried to be everything for Ariel. Evan was her undyingly loyal best friend, and Jack was her boyfriend. The three of them...until Ariel started getting sucked under by mental illness. Can Evan and Jack discover who is playing this sick game on them? Will they ever forgive themselves for their choices?

Written as a series of pictures and words, this novel is a new take on incorporating mixed media. The photographs are powerful, and the style Levithan choses to express emotion and inner voice are too. Highly recommended, a great story for high schoolers about doing the right thing and forgiving yourself.

"5B
I knew you were at the center of it.
This should not have surprised me, since you had always been at the center of things. Nobody would have put you anywhere else. Especially me.
Even now, you refused to be ~~pixelated, forgotten, silenced,~~ erased. Not that I wanted to erase you. The opposite. I wanted the opposite," (Levithan pg. 42, 2011).