Review: Review originally posted at The Selkie Reads Stories
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2013
"Some days are like this. And the only way to get through them is to remember that they are only one day, and that every day ends."This 37-page gem serves as a companion novel to David Levithan's latest novel, Every Day. I posted my review of Every Day a few days ago, and if you read it then you would know that I loved it to bits. Every Day crushed my heart and made my soul ache. Six Earlier Days didn't fail to do the same.This novella follows A through his life before it changed in Every Day. It's a pseudo prequel, because it comes before the actual book but doesn't really give hints on what's to come. A bit like bonus material on a movie. This was the aspect of Every Day that I liked the most; how A wakes up in a new body every day and how he goes through it. It was refreshing to read about A's life pre-Rhiannon and about how he managed to get through the days without affecting the life of the person he was inhabiting in any major way.In Six Earlier Days, A gets to be a seven-year-old girl, a ten-year-old and different teenagers. I have to give it to Levithan because he hooked me with each distinct narrative here. It awes me how well Levithan understood each and every one of the characters A inhabited because they were all so different from each other. His characters are like glass vases; beautiful but fragile. Their feelings came through their actions, and their emotions came through without saying a single word.Six Earlier Days was incredibly short but it packed a massive emotional punch. Leave it to Levithan to make your heart bleed because of six chapters. If you read Every Day and loved it, read this. If you haven't yet, read Six Earlier Days first, ponder your life decisions for a moment, and then cry towards the direction of the nearest bookstore and buy Every Day.Read more: The Selkie Reads StoriesFollow us: @ellietheselkie on Twitter