All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

“Entertainingly mixes thrills and humor.”—Entertainment Weekly “[An] amazing debut novel....Dazzling and complex....Fearlessly funny storytelling.”—The Washington Post “Instantly engaging....A timeless, if mind-bending, story about the journeys we take, populated by friends, family, lovers, and others, that show us who we might be, could be—and maybe never should be—that eventually leads us to who we are.”—USA Today Elan Mastai's acclaimed debut novel is a story of friendship and family, of unexpected journeys and alternate paths, and of love in its multitude of forms. It's 2016, and in Tom Barren's world, technology has solved all of humanity's problems—there's no war, no poverty, no under-ripe avocadoes. Unfortunately, Tom isn't happy. He's lost the girl of his dreams. And what do you do when you're heartbroken and have a time machine? Something stupid. Finding himself stranded in a terrible alternate reality—which we immediately recognize as our 2016—Tom is desperate to fix his mistake and go home. Right up until the moment he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and the woman who may just be the love of his life. Now Tom faces an impossible choice. Go back to his perfect but loveless life. Or stay in our messy reality with a soulmate by his side. His search for the answer takes him across continents and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be. Filled with humor and heart and packed with insight, intelligence, and mind-bending invention, All Our Wrong Todays is a powerful and moving story of life, loss, and love.

I have to be upfront here - I don't read science fiction at all because I don't understand it much. All the scientific terms go way over my head and I don't feel the same emotional connect that I probably would with a dystopian fantasy or historical fiction. The only SF book that I remember reading before this is Dark Matter which was quite good because I let all the technical aspects go and treated it like a romantic thriller.

Coming to this book, the premise sounded interesting and I had a feeling it would not be too technical. It started off really well and I thought I would love it. Tom lives in a different 2016 which he calls a techno-utopian paradise. Everything that mankind dreamed would be technologically possible has happened - flying cars, teleportation, jet packs, space vacations, moon bases, hover cars and so much more. His father is a scientific genius in the field of time travel who is disappointed with his ordinary son. Tom falls for another genius perfect woman and when tragedy occurs, impulsively goes back in time to the moment when the world was set on its high technological advancement trajectory. And unexpectedly, lands up in our 2016; with a more loving father, a living mother, a sister he never knew he could have and the love of his life. He is also a sort of genius here but with a different name. And the remaining book deals with his struggles in this world, his guilt of destroying his old reality and his desire to stay here with this loving family.

Only when Tom/John decides to find the genius behind his world's technological advances that the book gets too much for me. It goes into various details about the technicalities of time travel which I did not understand. And everything that happens later is quite confusing and I am not sure how we arrived at the ending. On the whole, the book turned into something that I didn't expect. I did not enjoy it as much I wanted to but it has enough good plot and writing to impress anyone who is more interested or aware of the genre.

4.5 out of 5 stars – see this review and others here.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Mashup: The Martian + Dark Matter + Back to the Future

It was truly a delight to read a novel with such a perfect blend of wit, adventure, and poignancy. Mastai writes with a smart, self-assured edge that makes his wonderfully absurd plot feel plausible and all the complexities of time travel seem straightforward. I fully expect (and hope) that All Our Wrong Todays will be a hit when it is released next year and I look forward to the movie adaptation that is already in the works.

3.5 stars. Slow start and a confusing ending, but a brilliant middle. It's always tricky writing about time travel, but for the most part, Mastai got it right.