This Time Tomorrow
Book: This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Synopsis:
On the eve of her fortieth birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, and her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But something is missing. Her father, the single parent who raised her, is ailing and out of reach. How did they get here so fast? Did she take too much for granted along the way?
When Alice wakes up the next morning somehow back in 1996, it isn’t her sixteen-year-old body that is the biggest shock, or the possibility of romance with her adolescent crush. It’s her dad: the vital, charming, forty-nine-year-old version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, is there anything that she should do differently this time around? What would she change, given the chance?
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
My thoughts: This book reminded me a lot of The Midnight Library. Both books use time travel in similar ways and they also both ultimately lead their main characters to a place where they’re able to make the most of the timeline they’ve been given.
I really liked how Alice wasn’t wholly unsatisfied with her life before she went back in time. I really liked how open she was to letting life bring her where it’d bring her. I also really liked how once she started seeing different versions of her life, she didn’t want to stay in the timelines where she married her high school sweetheart or had children or went on faraway adventures. She wanted more time with her dad and everything else was secondary.
I also really liked how Alice wasn’t able to control as much as she thought she could when she repeatedly went back to her 16th birthday. Sometimes multiple paths lead to the same finish line, no matter how hard you try to change course.
If you want to relive Alice’s 16th birthday a few times you can buy your own copy of This Time Tomorrow here or borrow it from your local library.
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