Another Good Read: This Time Tomorrow

If it seems like my blog has become a lot of book recommendations, I’m sorry. I’m doing more reading than I have ever done. I suppose my desire to read comes and goes, but every book I have read lately has had something in the plot summary that peaked my interest. It’s been fun to read stuff from new authors, too.

I literally just finished This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub. She is not a “new” author in that she has written many other books. I did find it interesting to know that her and her husband own their own book store in Brooklyn, New York.

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, I have mentioned my love for time travel stories. The thought of being able to go back in time and visit some famous event or to the future is intriguing. The Back to the Future movies, The Twilight Zone, Time Tunnel, and even the short lived series Timeless will always be fun to watch.

This book has a bit of time travel in it (and coincidentally, so does my next read). Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

“What if you could take a vacation to your past?

With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

On the eve of her 40th 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, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?“

What I love about the premise of the story is that even though she wakes up on her 16th birthday, she is very aware that she just turned 40. This is an important part of the story. It is kind of the “If I knew then what I know now” sort of thing. Tiny Spoiler Alert: There is a “Groundhog Day” feel to the story as she repeats the same day more than once. Knowing that won’t spoil too much for you.

The love story eluded to in the synopsis is not the ordinary love story. It is the love between a daughter and her father. That love is really what drives the story.

It really wound up being a thought provoking story. I could easily see this being something that would be a good Book Club read or even something that would make a great movie.