Book: Every You, Every Me by David Levithan

A picture is worth a thousand lies.

Sypnosis: In this high school-set psychological tale, a tormented teen named Evan starts to discover a series of unnerving photographs—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. -source

Review: I am deeply charmed with the author's way of writing. But all the strikethroughs text like this is quite too much. Though, in some way it is to show Evan's deep thoughts RANTS behind all of what is happening. Some are good, most of it are annoying. All his angst and more angst made me terribly confused. I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed on how the story goes. 

Don't get me wrong. The book cover itself is appealing to me ( I am fond of books with the Yous and Mes in the title) and as soon as I started reading it, I could feel the tension built in every page and it keeps me very thrilled to find out what's with Evan's uncertainty about Ariel's disappearance and the mystery of the strange pictures sent to him. It was kind of creepy. There's no clue what really happened to Ariel. It got me into thinking that maybe she got killed or caught in a terrible accident or just simply got rid of everyone, including Evan and Jack. which is not. What the heck was that even in the end everything was not clear at all. Ariel was like she's the center of the story but she's never been into it.

Anyway, Evan and Ariel are bestfriends. Jack is the ex-boyfie.  Evan is madly deeply inlove with Ariel. They keep their friendship and knew each other very well. or atleast they did. The idea of their arbitrary anniversary sounded a bit cute. Teen romance. girl-doesn't-like-commitments-boy-agrees-just-not-to-lose-the-girl That kind of thing. Ohh i'm wondering if Ariel did love Evan the same way he loved her. But this isn't a love story so i'll just drop that curiosity. I love that part when there's something like "Let's always love each other and never be inlove with each other." How weird and sweet and complicated was that? I know.

Okay, I'm totally immersed with the eeriness of this book but right in the middle, the plot become flat and a bit uninteresting. So the only reason I finished reading this is because I'm still damn curious, expecting that it will unravel the hidden mystery but sadly, it didn't. I have no idea how humdrum the ending was. It started really good but ended like i was just "oh okay..the end...?" (with a smirk)

Every You, Every Me is quite outlandish. It's a psychological tale with all the illusions randomly scattered and full of vague mutterings in the entire chapters.

This book is my first encounter with David Levithan, so I guess I'll consider reading some of his other novels next time. I believe he is a great author. This just didn't go well for me.

Thoughts: How well do you know your bestfriend or someone you are inlove with? How well can you hide that you've fallen inlove with your bestfriend? She didn't know. Maybe she wouldn't care.

In every friendship, there is a possibility that the other one will fall in love or it can be called lucky enough if you two have the same feelings. But what if not? Then it will be just a one-sided love or worse you will just try your best to set aside that blossoming feelings, just not to lose him/her to save the friendship. Falling in love can be dangerous to every part of yourself. It takes away something you can never get back.

What about pictures is worth a thousand lies? Because pictures sometimes conceal the truth. Anyone can easily be deceived from what he/she sees. What's the real story, feelings aren't seen in pictures. They are discarded unless it is worth to be remembered. The only great thing about pictures is that it captures the moments and turn it into solid memories.