This Time Tomorrow
RIVERHEAD BOOKS, MAY 2022
NOW IN PAPERBACK
The New York Times–bestselling author of The Vacationers and All Adults Here combines her trademark charm and wit with a moving father-daughter story and a playful twist on the idea of time travel.
What if you could take a vacation to your past?
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?
With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, Emma Straub cleverly turns all the traditional time travel tropes on their head and delivers a different kind of love story—about the lifelong, reverberating relationship between a parent and child.
Praise for THIS TIME TOMORROW:
“This Time Tomorrow is a beautifully made, elegant music box of a novel that sets in motion its clever clockwork of delight—then breaks your heart with its bittersweet, lingering song.” – MICHAEL CHABON
“Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow is that rare one-in-a-million novel that not only pulls you wholly into itself, but leaves a lasting mark when it finally releases you. Never has Straub’s writing been more incisive, clever, and emotionally generous—which is really saying something. The kind of book that will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you call the people you love. Exceptional.” – EMILY HENRY
“If I could time travel, I'd go back just far enough to start Emma Straub's beautiful novel This Time Tomorrow again for the first time. The pages brim with tenderness and an appreciation for what we had and who we were. I could not have loved it more.” – ANN PATCHETT
“…Emma Straub has never been better, expertly manipulating time travel tropes to unravel a tender story about family and fate. The result is a narrative full of revelations both heartbreaking and delightful, and one that serves as a love letter to Straub’s own father, the novelist Peter Straub, who passed away in September [2022].” — TIME, 100 Must-Reads of 2022
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY declares This Time Tomorrow “a delightful take on time travel,” with “a twist that Straub skillfully exploits without letting things get confusing, and which enriches the impact of love and loss on the characters. Readers will be captivated.”
In a starred review, BOOKLIST writes “... this addictive and lovely novel is Straub’s ‘smallest’ so far, focusing ultimately on a single character and her most treasured relationship. Yet it contains no less of Straub’s signature warmth and authenticity.”
“As always, Straub creates characters who feel fully alive, exploring the subtleties of their thoughts, feelings, and relationships… Combine Straub's usual warmth and insight with the fun of time travel and you have a winner.” — KIRKUS
“It may come as a surprise that Straub—a writer known for sunny, insightful book-club hits— tackled time travel, a motif often reserved for sci-fi writers….The resulting novel reads like a ’90s-flavored after-school special for adults—think 13 Going on 30 meets Back to the Future. It’s a delight.” – NEW YORK MAGAZINE
“What’s a millennial’s midlife crisis look like? In Emma Straub’s winning new novel...it looks a little like the movies they grew up on, with a dash of time travel to spice up the existential dread.... Straub is not so much concerned with time travel mechanics, the butterfly effect, or killing baby Hitler (or whatever the 1990s equivalent of that moral test would be). Straub is concerned with love – its different forms and expressions, how it evolves over time, and how we can be better at giving and accepting it. Love, too, for her own father, horror novelist Peter Straub, whom she thanks in the acknowledgments ‘for receiving this book as it was intended, as a gift.’” – USA TODAY
“Straub’s modern take on 13 Going on 30 skips all the fluff and goes straight for the gut. Brimming with whimsy and humor, the story of a young woman’s second chance at life is grounded by the unforced father-daughter relationship at its center. Come for the nostalgia, stay for the tenderness.” – ELLE
"With its intimate family scenes and moving explorations of love and grief, This Time Tomorrow is often a tearjerker, particularly for anyone who’s lost — or in the process of losing — a parent. But as with all of Straub’s novels, there’s plenty of humor and happiness to be found as well." – SHONDALAND
“Fans of time traveling and second (or third, or fourth) chances will find this novel enchanting, while fans of Straub’s previous work will find solace within the characters’ heads and hearts as they discover and rediscover what it means to grow up; grapple with time; and, ultimately, learn how to continue to tell a story.” – THE RUMPUS
“To me, beach read means a book you can get totally lost in. The last book to give me that feeling was Emma Straub's This Time Tomorrow, which finds 40-year-old Alice falling back in time to her 16th birthday, and reliving it over and over again. It's a heartwarming time travel novel about love and family and friendship that makes you feel all the things. If you're a crier, a slight warning: You will definitely cry.” – TOWN & COUNTRY editor Emily Burack
“Reasons to read it: Time Travel! The ’90s! Both are great reasons to pick this up, especially if you’ve read and love Straub other books. It’s another book that makes great observations about the nature of people and life that is as insightful as it is endearing.” – BOOK RIOT
“What if you could go back in time to be with your elderly dying parent when they were young and healthy? Emma Straub turns this question into reality in her fifth and delightful novel….and though the book’s plot may sound like it’s based on a sci-fi gimmick, which it is, the deeper question it asks is: How do we talk with each other about things that really matter? That is, why do we wait until a loved one is dying before realizing we never found out who they really are?.... what matters are the perplexing issues Straub uses her novel’s conceit to probe, such as the elusive experience of change and the passing of time…Straub is wise enough to know that despite having ample time, it’s never enough…..Because ultimately, no matter how you spend your time or where you put your energy, you’ll part from everyone you love. And no matter how much you improve your life, you’ll eventually have to leave it. Implicitly, then, Straub’s “This Time Tomorrow” is telling us there’s a more important lesson we actually need to learn, and that is how to let go. Live life well, and then let it go, our own and the lives of our loved ones — and that’s the best we can do.” – BOSTON GLOBE
“It's just not summer without a new read from Straub (All Adults Here, The Vacationers) on your nightstand. In this touching time travel novel, Alice, about to turn 40 and worried about her ailing father, wakes to find herself back in 1996 on her 16th birthday — and has the chance to learn more about her dad.” – CNN
“Known for her plucky voice and sweetly amusing ensemble comedies, Emma Straub returns with her most emotionally resonant work yet, This Time Tomorrow… Beneath the layers of ’90s nostalgia and sci-fi portals to the past lies something even more satisfying: a complicated tale that doesn’t feel the slightest bit complicated.” – VOGUE, “Best Books of 2022, So Far”
Emma talks with Molly Wizenberg for her newsletter “I'VE GOT A FEELING,” in which she describes Emma as “actual delight incarnate,” and encourages reader to preorder This Time Tomorrow, raving: “It’s funny, insightful, thought-provoking, moving…everyone should preorder it.”
“This Time Tomorrow is lovely, thoughtful and poignant. It is never saccharine and manages to avoid cynicism, which is no small feat in writing about family dynamics and self-reflection. With Alice and Leonard, Straub has created a healthy family dynamic and gives Alice autonomy, not to mention the strength to deal with something as fantastical as time travel. Like Alice, readers will find themselves wanting more time with Leonard. And, like Leonard, they will be delighted with Alice. This is a beautiful and rare novel, lovingly crafted with wisdom about and affection for the characters. Straub asks readers to ponder life and death, as well as the choices that define them, while still offering an entertaining, slyly humorous and truly special story.” – BOOK REPORTER
READER'S DIGEST showcases This Time Tomorrow as one of the “Best Fiction Books of 2022 So Far,” noting: “Prolific author Emma Straub plays with time travel…..The book explores memories, longing, and some of life’s big questions, like what you might do differently if you could go back.”
“Time travel is a popular trope in fiction, and Straub deploys it brilliantly in her effervescent new novel. …. Straub is an expert chronicler of social mores and the inner lives of her (mostly) bourgeois characters, and here she delivers a surefire bestseller.” – OPRAH DAILY
“The always delightful, deeply beloved Emma Straub returns with a novel that seems like her take on 13-going-on-30…. It’s Straub, so you know it’s going to be funny, touching, and filled with family drama.” – GLAMOUR
“[This Time Tomorrow] promises to play to Straub’s strengths: Warm, poignant family stories heavy on charm and compassion. Mostly, it sounds like tremendous fun. Yes, please.” – LIT HUB
“So, a time travel version of 13 Going on 30 is something we never knew we needed, but now can't live without, thanks to Straub's transportive—literally!—novel….Yes, tears will be shed, but there is comfort to be found in the nostalgic references and the irresistible magic of a ‘What if?’ being answered.” – E! ONLINE
“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.” – BIBLIOLIFESTYLE
“Straub excels at capturing the essence of a specific place and time from Mallorca to the Hudson Valley. In doing that, she reflects back to us an image of the people we want to be. Within her sprawling cast of characters, there often is a better version of the person we want to be. Straub’s novels are a bit of fun, comfort amidst the turmoil of the pandemic.” –THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS
“This Time Tomorrow explores how the moments that are meaningful may not be immediately apparent, and no matter what foresight and intentionality we may bring to our past, the future remains largely out of our control. Alice’s struggle to steer her fate across time has the reader on edge through the latter half of the book.” – CHICAGO TRIBUNE
NYC TASTE MAKERS features This Time Tomorrow in a round-up of “Great Beach Reads for the Summer,” raving: “Heartfelt and fun, this New York Times bestseller tells a story about love and time travel with a twist.”
APPLE BOOKS chose This Time Tomorrow as one of their Best Books of May 2022.
HARPERS BAZAAR names This Time Tomorrow one of the “Best, Buzziest Books of 2022.”
TODAY features This Time Tomorrow as a book the “Read with Jenna Community Can’t Wait to Read in 2022.”
PUREWOW features This Time Tomorrow among the “Best Beach Reads of Summer 2022,” declaring “If you’ve loved any of Straub’s other novels, this is a no-brainer.”
NBC NEWS lists This Time Tomorrow as one of 15 upcoming fiction books written by women to consider this spring.
PARADE MAGAZINE features This Time Tomorrow among “Our Favorite Books of Spring!”
POWELL'S spotlights the novel in their 2022 Preview, with one bookseller writing: “I came to This Time Tomorrow excited for a time-travelling, time-loop story with emotional resonance, and Emma Straub delivered. Reading this book gave me that ever-rarer feeling of obsessive teen excitement, but in a very adult way (I felt myself aggressively underlining poignant observations about the not-quite-disappointments with aging out of potential life paths, staying up all night to finish it, wanting to talk about it on the bus). A perfect novel brimming with speculative tropes rewired for realistic human behavior, gentle love letters to people and places in the past, and thinking about knowing and loving people across all the timelines of your life and theirs.”
PARNASSUS announces that This Time Tomorrow is their First Editions Club selection for May.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, PARADE, BUSTLE, GOOD READS, THE BOOKLIST QUEEN, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, and POP SUGAR also feature the novel on their 2022 “most anticipated” lists.
The DAILY BEAST praises This Time Tomorrow as “the delightful, literary cousin of 13 Going on 30” in a round-up of “The Best Summer Beach Reads of 2022.”
Emily Henry tells the AMAZON BOOK REVIEW the novel is one of her favorite recent reads: “This Time Tomorrow has a fun time-travel bend, a 90s New York setting, and Straub’s signature wit, but it also has one of the most beautiful father-daughter love stories I’ve ever read. It’s a book that has truly had a lasting impact on me.”
And Henry continues to share her love of This Time Tomorrow with SHE READS, including it in her list of book recommendations and favorite recent reads: “I read an early copy and it was both so fun and so poignant. It made me want to live better. I love when books do this.”
GOODREADS showcases This Time Tomorrow among the ranks of the “Most popular books published in May 2022,” and the NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY features among the Spring Fiction Releases they’re excited about.
