Emma Straub’s bestselling new book This Time Tomorrow is worth every bit of the hype it’s receiving. Along with the compelling voice Straub has come to be known for, this novel also includes a beautiful father-daughter relationship, intense ‘90s nostalgia, and time travel (!!). In the novel, protagonist Alice works as an admissions counselor at her former high school, lives alone in her studio in Brooklyn, and is dating a guy who is just… okay. She’s perfectly happy, except for the nagging feeling that she never quite went anywhere with her life. Her dad, the author of the bestselling novel Time Brothers (about two brothers who travel in time solving mysteries), is ailing in the hospital and Alice finds herself acutely aware of how many years have managed to slip through her fingers. She wants to soak up as much of her dad as possible and misses the days when watching Jeopardy together at the kitchen table was a given. Then, the morning after her fortieth birthday, Alice wakes up in her sixteen year-old body, firmly stuck in 1996. Now she needs to figure out why she’s here, how to get back, and what to do with this extra gift of time she’s been given. This Time Tomorrow is good storytelling at its best, and I absolutely loved it.

The funny thing about This Time Tomorrow is that even though it’s technically a novel about time travel, it doesn’t feel like a novel about time travel. It feels like a novel about a woman figuring out what to do with her life and who she wants to be, who inexplicably gets the chance to relive a bit of her past. I never felt bogged down by the time travel minutia because there isn’t much of it — more 13 Going on 30, less The Time Traveler’s Wife — and I found it easy to suspend disbelief for the joy of the ride. Straub makes New York City of the ‘90s seem so much fun; I loved seeing Alice walk cellphone-less through Central Park and order a hotdog at Gray’s Papaya. Also, Straub is a master at writing about families. The families in her books are always a little dysfunctional but loving at their core, and reading about Alice and Leonard’s lovely relationship left me feeling extra appreciative of my own family. Sentimental without being saccharine, and nostalgic without being cliché, This Time Tomorrow is a beautiful reminder that the most important things in life are the conversations, the walks, the watching Jeopardy with the people you love, and that the only way to hold on to these moments is to be as present as possible.

I’d recommend this book to…

• Anyone with a soft spot for father-child relationships and time travel… it’s similar in theme to the movie About Time
• Anyone who often thinks about the Sliding Doors moments in our lives, the “what could have been” moments… it’s similar in style to Midnight Library by Matt Haig
• Anyone who likes a relatable, smart, funny (sometimes a little snarky) protagonist… it’s similar in tone to Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid