Emma StraubRecensioni

Loved, loved, loved.

This Time Tomorrow, a time travel trope that will make you feel big things, is about all those “perennial decision[s],” like relationships and love, and what we choose to do with all those tiny moments made up of the lifespan we have. One of the things I loved about this story—besides the fantastic nostalgia of Alice’s 16-year-old self in the ‘90s—is how all stages of life are represented, even death as part of life: “Alice saw it now: all her life, she’s thought of death as the single moment, the heart stopping, the final breath, but now she knew it could be much more like giving birth, with nine months of preparation. Her father was heavily pregnant with death, and there was little to do but wait—“ (5).

Even though Alice vacillates between 40 and 16, Alice at 40 really resonated with me—that restlessness that comes when you’re suddenly (and anxiously) both looking behind you with regret and looking forward with fear. It’s in some of Alice’s transports between past and present, trying to piece together the puzzle of her life, that lost a bit of the momentum for me. But it’s in the heavy moments with Leonard and the full moments with Sam and the quiet moments with herself that enraptured me. And it’s the message of hope that inspired me, understanding that no matter the life, no matter the circumstance: “Joy is coming…. You just gotta keep your eyes open and look for it’” (232).

This poignant read is definitely worth your time if any of this appeals to you: father-daughter relationships, the setting and social norms of a New Yorker, ‘90s nostalgia, time travel, seeing yourself at 16, resetting your life to counter that restlessness because: “Any story could be a comedy or a tragedy, depending on where you ended it. That was the magic, how the same story could be told an infinite number of ways” (306).

I think I might have found a new favorite author! I just loved how Emma Straub writes and I think we are struggling with the same middle-life crisis, seeing our parents age, grieving our youth, accepting our aging and the acceleration and blending of time as we become older. She put what I think and feel in much more beautiful words than I possibly could. I really highlighted and liked a lot of quotes.

The book is full of nostalgia. I grew up thousands of miles away, ok we also got Beverly Hills, 90210, but I missed many other references. Emma Straub grew up in New York, the Upper West Side and she mostly writes about real places - past and present. I think for someone who grew up in New York in 1990s, this could really be a nostalgic time travel book. New York is an alive character in the book we get to know intimately. I loved the opportunity to live on Pomander Walk and walked the Upper West Side with the privileged who call it their home.

this was so genuine and bittersweet. i love thinking about the passage of time, whether i would change things if i could, the implications of those changes, and that love is the strongest force in the universe!!! perfect mix of lighthearted, funny, and poignant. it reminded me a little of happy death day (one of the best time loop movies ever tbh)½

My first Emma Straub experience and it was a good one. This review needs to be broken into two parts: the book and the writing.

Part One: All Adults Here.

There are no giants in this book and no villains. Nothing will stand out as an ah-ha moment, and you won't be haunted because of shock value after reading it. There is an abundance of truth and openness about how the family is generationally dysfunctional in ways, perfect in others, closeted and open simultaneously, and just as crazy, unpredictable, and loyal as yours.

There is a lot of head nodding, mm-hmm moments where you will recognize yourself, your siblings, or even your parent in one or another character. You will see that what you thought was uniquely off about your own family isn't. And that what you thought was remarkably special to your relationship is also noteworthy in others.

In other words, All Adults Here will help you open your eyes to family, its imperfections, and its constraints. You will watch Cecilia be sent to live with her grandmother at age 13 because she did the right thing but was bullied because of it; it was easier on her parents to remove her than deal with it. You will see Astrid, the matriarch, find love in the arms of a woman after being a widow for decades. As the firstborn, Elliot will finally be able to express the pressures of the same. Porter, the unwed, pregnant by choice from a sperm bank, still having an affair with her high-school sweetheart middle child, sees she is loved by her mother and both her older and younger brothers. And Nicholas, oh, precious, last born, never at fault, Nickey shows his downfalls and fears just like his siblings.

Set in small town USA, the townspeople are just as nosy and awful and loving and loyal and plagued with turmoil as in any other town; we all hate to love where we are from and couldn't imagine wanting to be from anywhere else if we were being honest. You will fall in love with some of the ancillary characters, root for Robin to find herself, and hope that Sidney falls off the float.

That is All Adults Here. I love this book. It is a book about nothing and everything and is an important book to read if you belong to a family.

Part Two: Emma Straub.

What an insightful writer Ms. Straub is. She captures the tiniest of nuances in grand ways without making a spectacle. In one stroke she can paralyze you by seeing your deepest secrets and open your mind while allowing you to feel okay about all of it. She is a rare writer that requires you must read every. single. word. Because if you don't, you might have missed something. Scratch that; you will miss something.

Take your time, read every word, and think about it. Put it into the context of your own life and come out the other side knowing you are not alone with how upside down according to the perfection on social media your life is. You are okay.

Thank you, Emma Straub, for writing truth.

Family dynamics when long time widowed mother introduces her female partner to the family. Interesting but confusing with the non -gender specific names, like Porter and August. It was OK.½

40-year-old Alice travels back in time to her 16th birthday party, and makes some changes that she hopes will alter her future.

What a spectacularly emotional book about time travel. Alice moves past being mired in her own regrets, past the fear of her father's death and her compulsion to control the death, and into a better understanding of how love functioned in her life. Honestly, what would anyone do with time travel other than go visit the people that they have loved?

2.5 stars. Disappointing. This was so saccharine I wanted to DNF it after the first part. I forced myself to read it only to be rewarded with more cliches. The only interesting character here was the dad, and he was not explored very deeply.
Everything in here is surface level, and even the 90s nostalgia didn’t do much to make it more bearable. This book could have been a lot better, but it felt so superficial to me.

I read everything by Emma Straub. I love her work. When I saw this one I hadn't read yet, I got it from the library. I didn't read anything about what it is about. Turns out it is about time travel--and I don't care for books about time travel.
The relationship between Alice, the main character, and her father, Leonard, and the one between Alice and her best friend Sam are the best parts of the book. Straub is an excellent writer, and this book is no exception. I just didn't care for the time travel!
Alice sits by her father's bedside as he is dying, over a period of time. She works at the school she attended herself, and although she enjoys it, wonders if she's missing out on something. She likes being single, but wonders if she should be with someone (although early in the novel she turns down her boyfriend's proposal). I like Alice. I like most of the characters. I'm just not sure where Straub was going this time, and/or why she chose this time travel theme.

Modern Lovers is one of those novels that doesn’t deal with anything new or over the top exciting, but is still very difficult to put down. It’s full of domestic drama – relationships, work life and teenage angst – that takes place over the summer. There are multiple characters with their own issues, big and small. I found it fascinating, perhaps due to Emma Straub’s skills in crafting the world and concerns of her characters.

The story is about three old university friends; Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe who live within a stone’s throw of each other in a neighbourhood of Brooklyn. Elizabeth and Andrew are married to each other and live with teenage sone Harry. He’s very well behaved; Andrew is a drifter, unable to stick with a job likely due to family money. Elizabeth is a real estate agent – it’s not a forever job, but she’s good at it. Zoe works with wife Jane at their local restaurant and tears her hair out at their daughter Ruby, who is rebellious and doesn’t look like she’s going to college in the fall. What binds the three together is not only their friendship, but that they co-wrote a song that defined a generation. Now a movie is being made of former bandmate Lydia’s life and they are being asked to sign over the rights. But this summer, that’s not their biggest problem. Harry and Ruby fall in love and get in trouble. Jane and Zoe are on the brink of divorce. Andrew falls in with a yoga group slash cult and Elizabeth tries to hold it together for everyone until secrets from the past spill out. It’s messy with big and small dramas.

The characters of Modern Lovers aren’t always endearing. In fact, they all have something that is irritating on various levels. Rather than detract away from my enjoyment of the story, it added to it. The characters (and their creator) aren’t afraid to act foolishly, stupidly or be obstinate just because. There are some complex interactions, made more tricky because of each character’s inherent biases and nature. I quite liked Elizabeth and Zoe, who both had different ways of dealing with things. Andrew, with his aimless wanderings, unhindered by a job or money worries, was grating because of his lack of knowledge of how the world actually worked. He came across as more of a caricature than the other adults.

At the heart, Modern Lovers is about relationships. Old love and new love, love that’s wearing thin and love that’s growing. It’s never constant, with the characters getting frustrated with each other and their younger selves. Brooklyn also acts as an anchoring character, with each character having strong ties to their local area and reluctance to move on. It’s not a book with a fast paced plot, rather a gentle exploration of interactions between and within generations.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com½

I put this book on hold from my library without really paying attention to what it was about. That was actually a good idea this time. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that this book is about the relationship between a father and daughter, facing mortality. Even though it goes into definite science fiction territory, and I usually stay far away from it, I was very intrigued. The overwhelming irony with life imitating art is that Emma Straub's father Paul actually died this past September 4, which was my father's birthday. We chose that day to hold the unveiling for him. I think in both cases, we are choosing life, despite all.

Good for a while then slowed toward the end. Most of the characters were judgmental and unfair so I didn't really like any of them (only Carmen). 

I liked this but I’m not sure everyone will. I feel like there are a lot of books out these days toying with the idea of the alternate life/timeline. I enjoy that concept and liked this but confess it’s getting a little played out.

That said: this one worked pretty well for me personally because I related to the main character Alice who shared my birthday, October 12, and is exploring her relationship with her Dad as he nears death. My own Dad died many years ago, when I was just 20, so the idea of getting to do what Alice does is something I really that I really connect with.

Also - can you even imagine going in to your 16th birthday with all of your adult knowledge abs experience onboard? Whoa!

I enjoyed this story of two couples who are approaching 50 and having mid-life/mid-marriage crisis. Three of the four people have known one another since college and lots of things come up from their past to confuse their present. Meanwhile their very different children start to get very close to one another.

I was expecting a funny romance because of the cover (and I knew nothing else about the book) but it's nothing like that but it's probably better.

A summer beach read about a family on their summer vacation. Slightly weightier than standard chick-lit but still easy to read and enough intrigue to keep you turning the pages quickly.

I love the cover most of all.

This was a little slow going until about 40% through the book. I was a little annoyed with Alice, but once the first time travel leap happened, things moved ahead quite well. The character development is good. This is not science fiction, even though there is time travel. It is only used as a method to explore relationships and the meaning of life for Alice.
I can't help wondering why so much in life now is somehow related to Ecclesiastes. Is it just me making the connections, or am I searching out stories that bring that book back to the foreground in my life?
I also wonder about the setting in NY City. Without being a native, I have no idea if Emma Straub is actually using real places or not. I am guessing that if she is, there is more of the story that relates to those that live in the city.

This book was what I wish every adult fiction book would be- the perfect blend of realism and magic realism. Not too much romance, but enough to make the story interesting (it doesn't take up the entire plot like many novels about adult women written for women). It felt mature, not like a YA novel masquerading as an adult one (that's the best I can describe the more shallow books of the adult fiction section). And in reading it, I felt some part of me had grown, and matured, along with Alice.

My life was (if temporarily) enriched, and I was newly reminded of all the small blessings in life I have and the weight of the choices I make. And the wonder of the moment I am in right now- how I will never go back in time as Alice does and have the opportunity to change things, but I can change how I look at my time in the present.

Anything can be a hat! Perfect for a story time where you make silly hats at the end.

This reminded me a lot of [b:The Midnight Library|52578297|The Midnight Library|Matt Haig|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1602190253l/52578297._SY75_.jpg|74043794]. I liked this better. I also really liked all the nerdy pop culture references related to time travel.

I picked this book up because I just turned 40 and I thought it would be fun to read a book where the main character's fortieth birthday is part of the plot. I wouldn't exactly call this book fun, but I'm glad I read it. I definitely cried at the end.

Neat idea, if you liked Rainbow Rowell's Landline you'll like this

This story sorta about a movie is like watching a forgettable movie that's trying to be trendy.

creative look at hats

This was interesting but, perhaps, not as deep as reviews made it out to be.

Alice Stern's father, Leonard, is dying. He hasn't spoken or even appeared conscious for the last week or so. Leonard was famous for writing one novel called Time Brothers which was turned into a successful TV series. After that one book, though, he never published anything else. Similarily, Alice has kind of coasted through her adult years. She has been working in the admissions department of the same private school in Manhattan that she attended. She lives in a small studio apartment and has just broken up with her boyfriend. On her 40th birthday she has dinner with her best friend, who also went to the same private school, but then her friend has to get back to her kids. Alice goes on to drink at a bar. She then stumbles to her father's home on a small lane and when she can't find the keys to get in she beds down in the nearby gardening shed. The next morning she wakes up in her childhood bed on the morning of her 16th birthday. Her father, who raised Alice as a single parent after her mother abandoned them both, is younger and healthy looking. Alice will spend part of the day with him but in the evening she is having a party while her father attends a science fiction convention downtown. Sixteen-year-old Alice, with the memories of the forty-year-old Alice, wonders if she can change things this time around so that her life and her father's improves. Of course, this is assuming that she will return to her forty-year-old self. She does but the mechanics of this time travel are sort of vague. Once back she still confronts her father dying in a hospital so she decides to try again. And again. And yet again. When father and daughter are finally able to discuss this time travel Alice learns that her father also did it. In his case he returned to the day Alice was born and he, also, tried to change things so that his wife wouldn't leave. Are they successful? If you want to know you'll have to read the book.

A review on NPR called this book "another delightful summer read". If you look at it that way, you will probably enjoy it as well.½

This was a quick, quirky read about Alice, a woman who can time travel to the date of her sixteenth birthday. The more she goes back, the more she tries to change the course of her life and save her ailing father. The writing was wonderful and the characters felt fleshed out and organic. The novel was also something of a love letter to New York which was delightful and charming to read. Despite the sometimes heavy subject matter the overall tone of the book was hopeful and optimistic, with a heartening message about embracing the messiness of life and focusing on the few things that truly matter.

I’m removing a star because, despite going back to 1996 dozens of times, Alice never once tries to stop 9/11. Selfish.