This Time Tomorrow

by Emma Straub

One upside to having a single parent was not rushing to get married, like so many people she knew had, just because they were trying to be adults. It was embarrassing, if you slowed down long enough to think about it, how many major life decisions happened because they looked like the model you’d been given.

Tommy said he was a philanthropist and when he did, Hannah had touched his leg, her hand gently stroking his thigh. “What the fuck does that even mean?” Emily asked, flicking her cigarette. “I have no idea,” Alice said. “Last I heard, he went to law school.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” “I’m afraid so.” Alice felt her eyes starting to well up with tears. “Fuck,” Sam said. “So you’re, like, old?” “I’m not old,” Alice said. “I’m forty.”

I like how this reveal isn't a big deal. The novel knows how many time travel stories did that stuff already and quickly gets it out of the way.

Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you.

Basically the gist of the novel summed up in one sentence.

The problem with adulthood was feeling like everything came with a timer—a

No one—certainly no one Leonard liked—wrote science fiction because it was a tool. That was for assholes. Of all the writers in the world, Leonard’s least favorite were the fancy ones, the ones from highly ranked MFA programs and award ceremonies where one had to dress in black tie, who had descended briefly to earth and stolen something from the genres—the undead, perhaps, or a light apocalypse—before returning to heaven with it in their talons.

Geez, where does the strong anti-intellectualism come from all of a sudden?

This was what Alice had been missing. Not just the answers to questions that she’d never been brave enough to ask, and not just family history that no one else knew, and not just visions of her own childhood through her father’s eyes, but also this: the embarrassing stories she’d heard a thousand times and would never hear again.

dad lore is always the stuff of legends

This was the last big birthday party she’d ever had, the last one with people she hadn’t invited swimming in and out of view.

Made me realize, yes, never had that after my 18th birthday either.

And one day, ten years ago, right around the time you started at Belvedere, I was talking to Chip about Doctor Who, and it reminded me of our little shed, and I thought, ‘That has to be it.’

The obligatory Doctor Who reference

Two-thirds of the student body would have described themselves as middle class, a category that Alice did not think usually included access to privately chartered airplanes and houses on Caribbean islands, cottages on Long Island, or full-time help in the home.

based Alice

his money was their only pot, so to speak, and most of the kids at Belvedere were sitting on several generations’ worth of booty.

“I love your dresssss,” one of them said, and Alice smiled. Women could say anything to her, and she would smile—if a man had said it, Alice would have scowled and crossed the street.

He had a Nirvana poster on one wall, hung neatly with thumbtacks, and a poster of a Ferrari right next to it, which was the whole problem, really.

Best dead-pan punchline in the entire novel haha

But it’s a choice—still. We’ve been married for fifteen years. But I still have to choose it. That doesn’t stop.”

Around 80% of married couples be like: surprised Pikachu

A lot of kids had 1:30 a.m. curfews, which sounded late at first but then seemed early, until Alice was in her late twenties and it seemed late again.