2/5: ‘Every You, Every Me’ is a Young Adult, Contemporary Mystery by David Levithan; Evan (?) is dealing with the guilt surrounding best friend, Ariel (?)’s, psychotic breakdown; the guilt is enhanced by a mysterious photographer, leaving strategically placed photographs for Evan to find. Levithan constructed the novel around photographs that Jonathan Farmer sent him. It started out really well. The first few pages were angst-filled, unsettling to the point of claustrophobia. The photographs were so haunting they added a degree of atmospheric tension and the way Evan reacted to them psychologically was extremely distressing. It is really clear from the get-go that Evan has problems, that Ariel had even bigger problems and their relationship is not exactly healthy. One of the most interesting things about the novel was the idea of what one never truly really knows another person completely even when there are love and closeness. Furthermore, as the story progressed, I found myself growing tired with the excess of strikethrough words as it turned out to be extremely repetitive and confusing. There were entire paragraphs and even pages that were entirely crossed out. Although usually, I find that this can be an interesting and effective way of providing extra insight into the mind of a narrator, here they happened all the time and to a point where I wasn’t sure what they were supposed to signify. At times, the crossed-out words disclosed uncertainty; at others, it seemed that Evan was trying to hide feelings. Sometimes they were memories he seemed to want to suppress, sometimes entire made-up dialogues – it is confusing because all of these are different thought processes and signify different things – at least that’s how I see it. Although there are some commendable things about the book (David Levithan is a good writer after all), I didn’t feel it lived up to its promising start – Unfortunate!