Book #207 of 2021:
The Double Life of Danny Day by Mike Thayer
This middle-grade novel goes far on the strength of its high-concept premise, which is that the ten-year-old protagonist lives every day twice. He treats the original go-round as a bit of a practice session, either goofing off or scribbling notes on quiz answers and various mishaps, then acts more seriously for the official version that follows, with the benefit of his mysterious foreknowledge. Teachers and classmates have no idea that any of this is happening, although he has gained a reputation as a bit of a psychic.
It’s a spin on the old time loop formula that I don’t believe I’ve seen anywhere else, which presents a fairly engaging read. I think younger audiences will especially enjoy it, both for the Fortnite-like gamer antics that make up a surprisingly large percentage of the plot and for not caring as much about a few sticking points that my own perspective brings.
My issues here are twofold. First, there are all sorts of interesting morality questions implicit in the setup that are barely discussed at all. Is it unethical to learn what’s on a test before technically taking it? How would living through a world without apparent consequences warp a person’s ideas of appropriate behavior and consent? The worst thing ‘Discard Danny’ ever appears to do is eat a lot of junk food and play relatively harmless pranks, but he effectively has no safeguards against significant abuse of his special circumstances. While I don’t need a child hero to actually do awful things, it feels a little disingenuous to not even raise the possibility of temptation in this scenario.
My second problem is a subtler matter, and has to do with the narrative structure of this text. Essentially, it all seems like act one of a story, the initial background information waiting for some big development to kick everything into the next gear that ultimately never arrives. The boy is at a new school where he makes friends and forms a plan to take down a local bully, but there’s no inciting incident that really escalates the situation. A few side threads end up getting dropped without particular resolution too, giving a further lopsided shape to the overall affair.
That concern might be alleviated to a degree if this ends up as just the start of an ongoing series, and again, I don’t know that a junior reader would even notice or mind. But as a standalone volume in my view, the title doesn’t quite hit its full potential.
[Content warning for cyberbullying and schoolyard violence.]
★★★☆☆
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