This Time Tomorrow

Alice Stern is living a mundane life in her forties, working at the same private school she once attended. Her father Leonard, a cult-favorite novelist, is dying in the hospital, and Alice feels stuck in place while watching his decline. On the night before her 40th birthday, Alice goes to sleep in her usual spot and wakes up in 1996 as her sixteen-year-old self. She finds herself back in her childhood bedroom, with her father healthy and in his prime, facing the possibility of changing both their futures. Time travel becomes Alice's portal to understanding her relationship with her father, her own life choices, and the complex nature of parent-child bonds. The story explores what it means to get a second chance at key moments in life, and whether changing the past is possible or desirable. Through parallel timelines and shifting perspectives, the novel examines themes of mortality, regret, and the weight of time itself. It raises questions about how people reconcile who they are with who they thought they would become.

Readers found the father-daughter relationship at the core of This Time Tomorrow authentic and moving. Many connected with the examination of time, aging, and appreciating parents while they're still here. The 1990s nostalgia elements resonated with Gen X and elder millennial readers. Liked: - Natural dialogue and relateable characters - Balance of emotional depth with lighter moments - Time travel mechanics kept simple and believable - Accurate NYC setting details Disliked: - Slow pacing in middle sections - Some found protagonist self-absorbed - Romance subplot felt underdeveloped - Ending left questions unanswered Ratings: Goodreads: 4.0/5 (167,000+ ratings) Amazon: 4.3/5 (11,000+ ratings) LibraryThing: 4.1/5 (1,200+ ratings) "Hit me right in the feels about my relationship with my own dad" - Goodreads reviewer "Expected more from the time travel premise" - Amazon reviewer "Beautiful writing but needed more plot momentum" - LibraryThing reviewer

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🕰️ Like the book's protagonist Alice, author Emma Straub worked at a private school in Manhattan, lending authenticity to those scenes in the novel. 📚 The time travel portal in the book—set at 12:01 AM on one's 16th birthday—was inspired by the movie "Big" starring Tom Hanks. 💝 Straub wrote this novel while her own father was seriously ill, paralleling Alice's story of trying to save her father through time travel. 🏠 The book's setting in Manhattan's Upper West Side is based on where Straub grew up, and many locations mentioned are real places readers can visit. 📖 The novel was an instant New York Times bestseller and was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by NPR, Vogue, Time, and The Washington Post.