I’ve been meaning to read Straub forever so when I spotted this pretty cover (it’s so shiny in person) on the library shelf and saw it was about a 40-year-old woman who wakes up as her 16-year-old self, I decided to give it a go. This was an introspective and gripping speculative novel. It shares a lot of DNA with the second season of Netflix’s Russian Doll (the book came out a month before) so if you were a fan of that I think you’ll love this.
At the center of the story is the relationship between our protagonist, 40-year-old Alice Stern, and her father– a dying science fiction novelist. When Alice wakes up in her 16-year-old life she a gets a new perspective on herself and the younger version of her father. Straub’s observations about the passage of time and inevitably of aging will probably cut deep for a lot of elder millennials.
Straub, best known for her contemporary work, really digs into the science fiction elements. The time travel is central to the plot and I think of this book as being firmly sci fi.
I bought the audiobook mostly because it is done by Marin Ireland. Ireland is a fantastic narrator, each of her voices are authentic and unique. Ireland is a working actress so she doesn’t do many audiobooks but I need more because she is one of the best.
I’m a lifelong reader who started blogging about YA books in 2011 but now I read in just about every genre! I love YA coming of age stories, compelling memoirs and genre bending SFF. You can find me talking all things romance at Romance and Sensibility.