Book Review – The Day Before Today, Lockdown Stories by Gayatri Gill

Since this is no ordinary book or ordinary times I am going to do this book review in a new way.

Who’s who

Format available for the home quarantined and the otherwise brave folks(book released and format available to purchase) – Ebook

Caution notice for institutional quarantine janata – Please take rest

Who took the hazard of publishing a COVID book(the publishing house) – Speaking Tiger

The one sharing these dark, quirky and the new normal stories(our author) – Gayatri Gill, sound and sane, available on social media.

Gayatri Gill is a producer, scriptwriter, story editor and co-founder at Swastik Productions, Mumbai, with over fifteen years of writing and production experience across television, digital, animation and documentary formats. The Day Before Today is her debut collection of short fiction. She is a mother to two children, two dogs and the occasional reptilian visitor.(author bio borrowed from the book )

Who brought color in these stories and created this creepily curious book cover(Illustrator) – Niyati Singh is the lead researcher of the India Justice Report at the Tata Trusts. She has an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford. In her spare time, she tries to be artistic, and talk to stray dogs — though never simultaneously. (Once again facts borrowed from the book)

All links can be found below at the end of this book review.

What not to miss

A collection of 10 short stories which will freak you with every sentence you read. Every story will take you on a roller coaster ride of human emotions. Each of these stories are around 8 to 10 mins read at max. The stories are named with an equal quirk- Day One, Positive, Status Update, Green, Red, Siya – Circa 2020, Siya – Circa 2023, Infection, Virus-Virus, The Peach: A Modern Fairytale. Each of these stories is engrossing and leaves us with the need for more. The imagination is ridiculously brilliant.

I took this book for some light reading and it did live up my expectations. My favourite is the peach story ( because it is a realisation of our selves and our true place in this universe ) and definitely the siya stories (it only pushes me to hope for a better-equipped future).

Gayatri has brought out human emotions in it’s raw form. Just as it is. No fancy drama or words to go away from the story. I felt that was kind of gripping and holding me to the book for all times. And the writing is super-expressive so visualisation was fun while reading it. The illustrations are very unique too. They add so much value to each story. Cover is my favorite of all the illustrations it’s the best.

You may feel initially that these are dark stories but as you read the stories the articulation of human emotions is wonderful. Some parts of the stories are based on true incidents so that did get my empathy, tears and emotions but mostly was a good read about covid lockdown and funny human emotions taking us down the dark rabbit holes.

We live in this world pretending most of the times of positivity but these negative feelings are taking hold of us in the unconscious. With times so stressful, It’s absolutely important we address them in the now and take hold of the new normal. Bringing these dark emotions out Gayatri has put a match to a bag of crackers.

Links

Buy book online – Amazon (don’t worry it will soon be available in a book store near you)

Speaking Tiger – Visit the website at www.speakingtigerbooks.com.

Gayatri Gill on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

Read about this happiness tool – it’s called Brain dump of my confessions. You will love it after reading this book.

I also have a vision for future after the COVID pandemic, do give it a read.

Come back for more book reviews and happiness tools.