5 Star Review: This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

Happy to share my latest 5 star book with you - This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub.  I loved this book so much!

When this book starts, main character Alice is about to turn 40, treading water in her career and relationships and dealing with a very ill father. Then, on the eve of her 40th birthday, she wakes up back in 1996 on her 16th birthday! How did she get there, how will she get back, and what happens if she changes things are all questions you’ll have to read this book to find out!

There are just so many things to love about this book. First, I love a good time travel plot and this one was just so well-done, thoughtful and deeply human and emotional. The 90s references were also spot on - I was a bit older than Alice in 1996 but every reference, from Sassy magazine to Reality Bites abs more rang true for me. Plus, the book is set in NYC and I moved to NYC in 1996 so the nostalgia factor was just so good. There were also just so many great lines in this one, I’m not one who usually highlights when reading but I found myself taking pictures of pages with some of my favorite quotes! I also loved that Alice’s journey was not just about her love life, but that her relationship with her best friend but even more so her relationship with her dad was the centerpiece of the book. And this book absolutely wrecked me emotionally - my reviews of my favorite books often mention my crying, and I finished this one with the badge of honor - a neck soaking wet with my tears!

I love Emma Straub’s writing - her book Modern Lovers was one of my top 10 books of 2016, and I loved All Adults Here and The Vacationers as well, but this was definitely her best book yet! I was lucky enough to get a copy of this from the library on release day, proceeded immediately to read it, and finished it in less than 24 hours because I just didn’t want to put it down.

This just came out, but I've already seen people compare it to all kinds of different time travel stuff.  For me, what it reminded me of the most was this obscure tv show called Hindsight that ran for just one season, possibly because my husband and I were the only ones who watched it.  😂 But it also involved a woman who found herself back in her younger self in the 1990s.  There are also elements that remind me of other books and movies - everything from Peggy Sue Got Married (name checked in the book) to The Midnight Library to the fact that this was the love letter to the parent-child bond that One Italian Summer wanted to be.  So yeah, not everything about this book was original - I don't think you can even expect that because time travel has been done a lot.  But it was so, so great!

I want to share one of my favorite quotes with you if you don't mind - not a spoiler but if you don't want to read it, just skip ahead:

[Alice understood] that fiction was a myth.  Fictional stories, that is.  Maybe there were bad ones out there but good ones, the good ones - those were always true.  Not the facts, not the rights and the lefts, not the plots, which could take place in outer spacer or in hell or anywhere in between but the feelings.  The feelings were the truth.

And that's exactly why I loved this book - because the feelings in it were the truth.  

If you follow me closely, you know I'm VERY selective with my five star ratings.  I've already read 84 books this year (I know, what?!?), and this is only my second five star rating - the other was Notes on an Execution (you can see my review here).  And in all of 2021, I only gave one book a five star, just because it was so darn amazing nothing else could compare - Project Hail Mary (review here.)  Anyway, my point is, a 5 star review from me is an extremely high endorsement!  So if this one sounds interesting to you, go read it!