Welcome to Read This Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!
This week’s pick is a new book by a well-loved author whose work I’ve been meaning to get to! I’ve heard amazing things about Emma Straub’s books and frankly, all of her novels sound amazing to me, but it just so happens that I got my hands on her newest book on audio, which I listened to in one sitting while painting my bathroom!
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Content warning: Terminal illness
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Alice is on the cusp of her 40th birthday, dating a man she likes but not well enough to marry, and dissatisfied in her career. But the worst thing about her life is the fact that her beloved father is terminally ill, and no one knows how much longer he has. When she goes to sleep on her fortieth birthday, she’s stunned to wake up on her sixteenth birthday again. Alice is intrigued and unsettled, but she has to admit there is one perk: Her father is healthy and alive, and she can talk to him again. No matter what led her here, this seems like an opportunity too good to pass up…but whatever changes she makes at sixteen will have serious consequences for the future.
I thought that this was such a great premise that allowed Straub to really take her characters in interesting places, and it’s all set against the interesting backdrop of New York City, particularly NYC in the 1990’s. Alice’s dad is a famous sci-fi writer of time travel fiction and while his books bear little resemblance to Alice’s situation, it does mean that Alice has some really intriguing conversations about time travel with the people in her life, and I thought that Straub approached the time slips in a really clever way. It was like sci-fi lite for people who might not be into the genre, but it also had enough nods to the genre that those who come to the book for the time travel will be satisfied. I loved the way that Straub examined how decisions we make as young people can inform our world view, which can have a profound impact on our futures…but that doesn’t mean things are always set in stone. This is a great novel that looks at identity and possibility and mortality in a moving way, it’s perfect for fans of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig!
Bonus: Marin Ireland, narrator and actress, voices this audiobook and her performance is excellent!
Happy reading!
Tirzah
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