Every Day (audiobook)

This is not really a review just so thoughts about the book Everyday.

I started listening to to this book Every Day by David Levithan a couple of months ago and finally got around to finishing it. Every Day is about a person who every day wakes up in someone else’s body. Always someone around their age, never the same person. They call themselves A.

Read the rest here.

This is not really a review just so thoughts about the book Everyday.

I started listening to to this book Every Day by David Levithan a couple of months ago and finally got around to finishing it.  Every Day is about a person who every day wakes up in someone else’s body.  Always someone around their age, never the same person.  They call themselves A.  A has been hopping from body to body their entire life.  One day A wakes up in Justin’s body and falls in love with Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon.  Most of the book is about A revealing themselves to Rhiannon and trying to have a relationship with her despite changing bodies every day.

I’ve been mostly enjoying Every Day.  A is agender and pansexual.  They have no problem with whatever gendered body they wake in.  Through the multiple bodies A inhabits we get glimpses of different lives.  Twin brothers, a suicidal girl, a gay boy, a trans guy, a runner, an alcoholic, a immigrant house cleaner, and more.  I’ve felt like the author showed me these lives, even the flawed ones, fairly with little judgment.  There’s minor digressions about gender that aren’t bad.  It’s not perfect but it doesn’t hit any major sour notes for a while.

And then we got to the Fat Body, three hundred pounds, and there is nothing but judgment.  Suddenly A is disgusted with the body.  It’s too heavy to move, every motion is an effort.  The body is ‘sphere’.  We’re told the owner of the body gave up on being skinny.  A considers implanting a memory of the day that would scare the body’s owner skinny.  Then later the date with Rhiannon is all about how fat A is and Rhiannon “can’t see” A in that body(this has never come up before even when A has been in a girl’s body).  Being fat is presented as the worst thing A has ever been.

Just after the fatphobic chapter, the story take a bit of a turn toward resolving the main plotline of the novel and a couple of minor plotlines.  I honestly wasn’t happy with the ending.  I’ll write more about the ending under a cut for spoilers.

Overall I liked Everyday.  Even through I spent half this post grumbling about what I didn’t like, I did enjoy the majority of the book.  It’s unfortunate that it’s the ending that disappointed me.  If it had just been the fatphobic chapter I might have given the book another listen one day and skipped that chapter but knowing that the ending is unsatisfying, at least to me, kind of kills that desire.

My thoughts on the ending under the cut. Continue reading “Every Day (audiobook)”

Hardcore Henry trailer

Yesterday I saw the trailer for this movie on Hulu.  I have actually been skipping it over on Youtube for like a week because I was confusing it with a tv show that I have no interest.  Today I saw the trailer on the big screen in front of Deadpool.

Hardcore Henry is about a man who was killed/horribly injured somehow but his wife has brought him back with the help of super advanced prosthetics she made.  An evil corporation, I guess, breaks into the lab to steal her work and kidnaps her.  The rest of the movie looks to be a series of over the top action scenes leading up to her rescue.

This is all fairly standard scifi action movie boilerplate.  The twist is the movie is shot from Henry’s pov.  First person movies are not new thing.  Most found footage movies are basically first person.  This movie looks to have nuch smoother camera movements than your typical found footage movie though.  Also in the trailer it’s established that the main character is mute.  First person perspective, action shooter, mute protagonist.  Yeah, this movie is very much in the style of first person shooter games.

There isn’t much in the trailer that makes me want to see this movie but if I did, I would want to see it in the theater.  There’s a scene in the trailer where Henry flips end over end as he falls off an overpass. Watching this on my tv I was not impressed.  Watching it on the theater screen I felt a lot more “in the action”.  A couple other scenes also gave off that vibe.  It’s the same effect you get from watching first person roller coaster footage.  This is going to be the reason to see this movie in the theater.  Not the story or effects but the “first person action experience”, which I don’t think will translate to the small screen.

Overall I’m not interested in another generic action movie about a man rescuing his wife even with the first person gimmick.

The nicest thing a customer has said to me

I heard over the walkie that a customer needed help by the pillows.  I was in a neighboring department so I responded.  The customer was looking for king size pillows but we didn’t have any.  She of course asked if we had any in the back.  I knew for a fact that we don’t have any pillows in the back.  I told her, “No we don’t have any in the back, I’m sorry.”  I apologized like I’ve been trained to anytime a customer doesn’t get what they want or if I’m too slow or if the sky is cloudy.  It’s just something we as customer service are expected to do.  Most people either don’t acknowledge it or dismiss it with , “It’s all right.”

This woman however said, “It’s ok, it’s not your fault.”  It’s not my fault.  I can’t remember the last time a customer said that to me.  It was shocking to hear that.  It’s not my fault that we’ve sold all the king size pillows and haven’t received any more in our shipments.  These events, totally out of my control, that I routinely apologize for are not my fault.

It’s nice to be reminded that, as much as I say sorry for things out of my control, I really am not at fault.