Hardcover, 320 pages
English language
Published May 3, 2022 by Riverhead Books.
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn't just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it's her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?
The hero rarely speaks and yet shares incredible wisdom. The heroine repeatedly surfs the tides of life.
My only disappointment was how slowly the book embraces the reader... but then I think that's part of the plan. This novel has an amazing, believable, and magical conclusion.
Irreverent and sweet 90s Manhattan nostalgia and meditation on the desire for more time as we become more adult.
I'm not sure whether this is being marketed as a YA novel, but that's the tone it communicates. It's a light, short, fun read, but doesn't break any new ground. Without spoiling anything, if you've seen Groundhog Day, it's very similar, with a few twists. Minus one star for the eye-rollingly heavy-handed application of one of the worst fiction cliches: "New York is another character in the book!"
