Although it features time travel, this is really about love and making the most of the time that you have. Cherish friends and family and look forward to the next phase in life. This is a sweet book that remembers being young and how people can change.

The opening pages were so sensitively written and touching to read that I longed to know what had brought Leonard to his deathbed and discover more about the relationship he had with his daughter, Alice, as she sits broken-hearted beside him.

Such moments are frequently filled with memories and regrets about words left unsaid, combined with a desperate longing to turn back the clock and put things right if possible. What we (and 40 year old Alice) are unaware of at this point in the story is how that opportunity will open up for her.

Much to her surprise, an otherwise unadventurous Alice inadvertently returns to her younger self who is preparing to celebrate her 16th birthday. Though time travel is more of an intriguing authorial device here, not the major thrust of the novel itself.

But it serves the story well because the relationship between father and daughter is developed and explored alongside 1990s cultural references to New York. The potential to alter the narrative arc of her father’s illness and her own future keeps Alice invested in going back again and again.

I loved the close relationship between Alice and Leonard and the deeply poignant ways she seeks to understand him better from her teenage and 40 year old perspective. A cleverly crafted book full of wit, warmth, love, and hope. Grateful thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House/Michael Joseph for the ARC. 4.5**

I very much enjoyed this tender life affirming time travel novel particularly for the way it describes real relationships so beautifully
I’m
A big fan of time travel novels and enjoyed the fact that this book which sends a 40 year old woman back to her teenage years to relive her life in different ways .I liked the way that the time travel left the woman moving both in time and in place so that she would fall asleep in her childhood bed for example and wake ok a parallel life in the house of a potential future husband
I loved the fact that the father figure who also is able to time travel although mostly back to the day of the birth of his only daughter is simultaneously the author of a series of time travel novels which have gone on to make him famous ..I was pleased with the circularity of this
Having read a large number of time travel novels I would say this is amongst the best and most memorable that I have read

The setting mostly in New York in the 90s and current time ( although blissfully no Covid ) really grounds the book the places themselves being almost additional characters
The author describes relationships and feelings in a very perceptive manner with the result that his characters are fully defined believable real people
In the same way the time travel is placed so well in the story that it’s existence ( never really explained why or how it exits ) is totally believable
I loved the historical details of the 90s
I can’t help but think that this book would make a fantastic film and I’m sure the rights will be hot property
I will be recommending this book
I read an early copy on NetGalley Uk the book is published in June 2022

'Prior to reading 'This Time Tomorrow' by Emma Straub, I didn't have any idea of the story. In some ways I think that is the best way to read this novel so you don't have any preconceptions. If you don't want to read any more of this review, so you can do the same thing, all you need to know is I loved it and would highly recommend it!

Alice leads a mediocre life: she works in the private school she once attended, she lives in a small apartment and she is in a relationship where a highlight is her partner has a good washer dryer. On her 40th birthday Alice is preoccupied by her father's ill health, her bosses retirement and a chance meeting with someone she was in love with at 16. At the end of the night she stumbles drunk to her father's house and falls asleep in the guard house. When she wakes up, she is in her childhood bed and about to celebrate her 16th birthday.

Time travel makes you think of sci fi, something Straub is very aware of when she talks about time travel books within the novel. However, this story is really about a daughter's love for her father and her sadness at his growing frailty. Very cleverly written, there is a huge amount of humour, but there remains a great deal of emotion. I really resonated with the idea that as we age our family members are constantly changing and the love with have for them must change with it. Time travel is the device Straub uses to explore this, rather than the reason for the novel.

loved this one!!! really loved the whole tone of the characters, the care and love between them, the way the time travel aspect was explained and explored. one of those books where i eked out reading it just so i could have it for longer. one of my faves of the year!!!!

An enjoyable and tear jerking story about the father/daughter relationship. Really well written and great to be reminded of the 1990's before technology really took over.

This reminded me of a few things. About Time, The Midnight Library. It's a time travel novel with heart, focusing on relationships and life rather than the time travel aspect itself. The balance between science-fiction and contemporary may not work for everyone.

Some will think the time travel element is flawed and unbelievable. But I like how Straub was able to explore Alice's life choices through. What happens to Alice is a lot of peoples fantasy. To go back with the knowledge of hindsight.

I loved that Straub decided to focus on a father/daughter relationship rather than a romantic one. It makes this book heartbreakingly touching and emotional, and I really felt attatched to these characters. The hospital scenes at the beginning were especially well written.

'Alice saw it now: all her life, she'd thought of death as the single moment, the heart stopping, the final breathe, but now she knew that it could be much more like giving birth, with nine months of preperation. Her father was heavily pregnant with death, and there was little to do but wait.'

It went down routes I wasn't expecting, and Alice made choices that didn't feel wholly in character. But it's beginning and ending was beautiful. This book was funny and moving, and this was my first Emma Straub book, but it won't be my last.

Oh my goodness. When Alice wakes up the day after her 40th birthday and finds she is sixteen again - this got me right in the heart as she walked in the kitchen and saw her father as a young man again - who hasn't lost someone they would want to see again so much, even for just one last conversation.

Heart-breaking, thought-provoking, beautiful book, Alice shows us there's more to life than missed chances, and how to find happiness and peace in the everyday. This is how time travel could be, and wouldn't that be marvellous.

Get the tissues and be prepared to lose a day reading this book - once you start you won't be able to stop.

I love time travel books. The idea of being in a familiar place but maybe in a different time. I was intrigued by this one particularly because it seemed very different. Alice’s trips back in time always seemed to be entirely focused around one person and her desire to change things.
It is so well written that it flowed off the page and I couldn’t put it down. There was so much in the story that I think many people could relate to and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The ending wasn’t quite what I’d imagined it would be and yet, on reflection, it was perfect.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is about Alice on the eve of her 40th birthday. Her father is dying, and the rest of her life isn’t going as planned either.. The next morning she wakes up to find a much younger and fitter version of her father and that it is her 16th birthday. Alice takes the opportunity to spend more time with her father getting to know him from the prospective of her 40 year old self. She also tries to do what she can to prevent him getting ill in the future.

I usually love books that involve time travel but I found this book quite slow. I really wanted to love it but it didn’t do anything new and I wasn’t really invested in any of the characters. I can see what the author was trying to do with this book but in my opinion didn’t quite pull it off.

This is a beautiful story of love, both familial and romantic.
Suddenly transported back to her 16th birthday from her 40th Alice finds herself in a unique position to potentially change the past to make her future happier, specifically with her dad. Once she finds her teenaged feet she tries to make subtle changes that will save her dad without causing a rift in the space time continuum but when she discovers she can keep on returning the changes become more and more dramatic
With each return to her 40 year old self she must relearn her life as a result of that meddling but never seems to resolve the biggest problem of all- her dads failing health.
The characters are wonderful, from Alice and Leonard to the supporting cast of friends and new family every single person is whole and magnificent with a rich personality and a beautiful link to Alice in either or both of her 16 and 40 year old personas.
Definitely my favourite time hopping book.

t’s Alice’s 40th birthday, but when she wakes up, she’s at her 16th birthday party. In her current day life, her father is dying, so she uses this chance to go back in time to help change the future and try to avoid her father getting sick.

Unfortunately, I wanted to like this one more than I did - It plays on the trope of time travel and the chance to see how your life would play out if you made different decisions, which is usually 100% my shit (loved the book The Midnight Library for this, obsessed with the movie About Time). However, this one just felt really low stakes and the whole time I just couldn’t really get into the plot or feel a close connection to the main characters. Early reviews for this are seemingly really positive though, so it could definitely just being a case of this author not being for me!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy and the chance to read this ahead of publication in exchange for my honest review.

This Time Tomorrow
By Emma Straub

When you have a parent or grandparent you is dying or has died, you spend an inordinate amount of time regretting the things you never asked about, guilting over the things you might have done differently and obsessing over the things that you noticed subconsciously, but never paid attention to. It's part of the natural grieving process.
Alice is about to turn 40. She is not quite feeling grown up yet, in her single, childless state and she wonders about all the little decisions she made in her life to bring her to this point. Her beloved Dad is dying and like anyone who cares for another who is not doing well, she wonders if she is doing everything she possibly can to make things right. Little does she know she is soon going to get a chance to change everything, but how much can each little tweak change the course of her destiny?
Groundhog Day, One Last Stop, The Midnight Library, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. If you have enjoyed any of these time loop books, then you know what happens next. The do over.
I particularly enjoyed all the New York City references and the 1990s culture references. Straub really sent me back there. She also helped me revisit 16 year old me, all that teenage angst!
Ultimately the book is about the march of time and how change is inevitable. Nothing is forever but our memories can be.
Thank you to #Netgalley for this free ARC in exchange for an honest review, I loved it.

'This Time Tomorrow' is a wonderfully enjoyable time-travel novel with a difference. Alice Stern is about to turn forty; she works in the admissions office of the exclusive New York private school she attended, her current relationship isn't going anywhere, and her father, Leonard, is dying. The first quarter of the novel or so ticks along quite happily developing these strands with lots of wit and charm, but then a bizarre series of events leads to Alice waking up back in her teenage body in her childhood home on the day of her sixteenth birthday. She has no idea how she got there or how to get back to her adult life.

Emma Straub has a lot of fun with Alice's time travel: it's a fun premise with interesting constraints as Alice realises how little she remembers of her original sixteenth birthday and has to decide how closely she wants to replicate what happened first time round. It's also rather clever and meta - Alice's father is the author of a bestselling time travel novel of his own, and Alice uses this and other sci-fi books and films as her points of reference as she tries to work out what is going on.

However, Emma Straub's novel isn't really sci-fi at all, and the time travel is subsidiary to the novel's exploration of love and loss. Straub writes about family, relationships and the ordinary details of everyday life with the deftness and lightness of touch of authors such as Anne Tyler, Laurie Colwin and Katherine Heiny, and the novel is frequently very funny - in particular, Straub's characterisation of the privileged elites of the Upper West Side (she avoids alienating her reader's sympathies for Alice and her father by positioning them as slight misfits within this world).

Straub introduces a possible romance through the character of Alice's former crush Tommy, whom 40-year-old Alice interviews as a prospective parent, having not spoken to him since the night of her sixteenth birthday, so we are left wondering whether Alice will be able to find a way of bringing them together. Most of all, though, this is a novel about the relationship between a single father and his only daughter who are about to lose each other in the present so find it hard to resist the opportunity to be together in the past - but this comes at a cost. Time travel offers a surprisingly poignant way of exploring the grief and loss, which really adds depth to this novel.

This is an absolutely delightful read, with lots of fun and lots of heart. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review!

Emma Straub's delightful time travelling novel celebrates New York City and explores the central father-daughter relationship. Native New Yorker Alice is approaching her 40th birthday, she is working in the admissions office of the exclusive and expensive Belvedere School, which she herself had attended, leaving her feeling as if she had never left as she now interviews the children of parents she went to school with. She tries to visit her ailing 73 year old father, Leonard, as much as she can, even though he cannot speak to her, he is going to die soon, it could be anytime and it has her reflecting on where she is in her life and what she has and has not achieved. After meeting her long time best friend, the pregnant Sam, on her birthday, she ends up getting drunk and falling asleep, only to wake up at her childhood Pomander Walk home in 1996 on the morning of her 16th birthday.

Leonard is an offbeat novelist who made his money writing a popular and lucrative sci-fi novel about 2 time travelling brothers that was made into a TV series. The independent Alice had a close relationship with him, she has never belonged to anyone other than Leonard, making her feel so alone, and she has forgotten what he was like before ill health took such a heavy toll on him. She now has a chance to see him anew, a younger man who walks everywhere, without the stress of whether it will be the last time she sees him. Could there possibly be any changes that 16 year old Alice, from her 40 year old perspective, can instigate that might change or influence her and Leonard's life for the better in the future? She is presented with the poignant opportunities to ask questions, hear his stories, some embarrassing, and Alice becomes aware of how many of her school friends she has forgotten through the years, such as Kenji Morris. The reader becomes immersed in 1990s nostalgia with the culture, the popstars and film stars of the period.

Straub's storytelling has oodles of charm, heart and wit, Alice encounters numerous versions of herself, but which is the one that resonates most? The author paints an alluring and heart tugging picture of a father and daughter relationship, of friendship, of life, and its joys, love, loss, grief and challenges. The transitory nature of life is inescapable, pushing the need to tangibly appreciate loved ones in the here and now, Alice gets a second chance to do this through time travel, deepening her understanding and knowledge of Leonard. This is a gloriously engaging, hopeful and entrancing read that I think many readers will enjoy. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I enjoyed the first part of the book but lost interest when Alice went back to her adolescence. It felt too much like the typical high school, coming of age story (except with her frequent interjections - I didn't remember that! She'll be dead soon! etc). It might interest you if you have the same cultural references as Alice. DNF

Sadly this was a DNF. I don’t know why I couldn’t get into it. Maybe it was that I felt I couldn’t relate at all to the main character, or that it just felt too depressing reading the few chapters of introduction, but in either case I soon decided this wasn’t for me, which was disappointing as I was hoping for something a bit like midnight library by Matt Haig which I’d absolutely loved

I devoured this book. I'm someone who, in the past few years, turned 40, lost my dad, and started writing a book about time travel to revisit your 16 year old self so this is very much my jam!! I love how Emma takes the time travel trope and grounds it in a firm emotional reality. Her world-building and characterisation is so spot-on, I felt I knew these people and their favourite spots in NYC after reading. More than anything, this is a book that makes you think about how you're living your life now: are you living in the moment? Are you fixated on your past? Are you obsessed with thinking about what might have been and what you should have done differently, instead of what you have now and what future you're going to build for yourself, what present you have to change, rather than what past? This is a gorgeous, wise, moving book.

So it's Alices 40th Birthday she goes to sleep in a shed because she's lost her keys and wakes up the next morning in her childhood bed and it's her 16th she gets to relive it all again. But what does it mean

At her 40th birthday her Dad is dying is it possible to change it week you have to read all about it yourself and all the other twists that kept me guessing. Sam is here best friend Tommy a interesting interest! There's other characters that add extra value and made it a deeper read if that makes sense.

I'm going to give it 5 stars because I really enjoyed it, it was different to my normal reads although I have read a few like this one. This was better than those and I'm hoping you enjoy it as well.

4 -5 stars rounded up.

As Alice Stern's 40th birthday is fast approaching, she ruminates on the time it takes to die as she watches her beloved father, novelist Leonard doing exactly that. Without giving too much away she finds a portal which transports her back to her 16th birthday in 1996! I find myself deeply envious of the opportunities this affords Alice especially in her relationship with Leonard.

I love Emma Straub’s books so I guess I am very much the target audience for this one! The quality of her writing, the wry tone, the incisive nature of Alice’s thoughts effortlessly pull you into her world and you find yourself totally accepting the concept of the novel. It’s a poignant and emotional story as Alice reflects and becomes introspective on her life and what she has and hasn’t achieved.

Alice at 16 and at 40 are both wonderfully portrayed. It’s interesting seeing the decisions she makes , what leads to them and how she feels towards her peers as she peers through 40 year old eyes. All the characters are well fleshed out and so easy to visualise but the standout feature is the relationship between Alice and Leonard, what a wonderful man he is. I love that it gives her the chance to ask him the questions she never did as a 16-year-old, because why would you? I am envious that I haven’t the opportunity to do the same!

The other ‘stars’ of the show are the 1990s and New York City. The back to the future style trip evokes wonderful and multiple memories especially of film and music, the 90s being all about Oasis for me! The setting in New York City especially Pomander Walk where her father lives is full of charm and atmosphere but it’s very much a love letter to this vibrant and exciting city. The author transports me back to my trip there!

It’s a delightful journey, beautifully written and I finish it with a lump in my throat. You never know what’s coming and you just have to be happy with what is there.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Penguin Random House/Michael Joseph for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.