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Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2023
368 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Brimming with humor and heart, Maurene Goo's time-travel romance asks big questions about what exactly one inherits and loses in the immigrant experience.
Moms.
More complicated than an origin story ...
Samantha Kang has always butted heads with her mom. Priscilla is first-generation Korean American, a former high school cheerleader who expects Sam to want the same all- American nightmare. Meanwhile, Sam is a girl of the times who has no energy for clichéd high school aspirations. After a huge blowup, Sam is desperate to get away from Priscilla, but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.
To her shock, Sam lands in the '90s ... alongside a 17-year-old Priscilla. Now, Sam has to deal with outdated tech, regressive '90s attitudes, and a time-crossed romance with the right guy in the wrong era.
With the clock ticking, Sam must figure out how to fix things with Priscilla or risk being trapped in an analog world forever. Sam's blast to the past has her questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom ... and herself. One thing's for sure: Time is a mother.
"Via sharp-witted humor and multidimensional characters, Goo crafts a layered, intergenerational telling of compassion and empathy that, rather than excusing the actions that drove a wedge between Sam and Priscilla, provides context that helps Sam make peace with their relationship." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Goo's masterful storytelling examines the complex nature of familial relationships. A deft, delightful, and emotionally complex examination of intergenerational relationships." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"With a hauntingly hilarious premise—getting flung back in time to be besties with your mean girl mom in high school—Throwback is bright, warm and wholly engrossing. Brimming with breezy dialogue and wry fashion observations, Maurene Goo has rendered a captivating jaunt through the mid-nineties, complete with casual racism and vintage identity politics. Slyly provocative, compulsively readable, with an absolutely tantalizing twist, Throwback is a striking, heartfelt addition to the time-travel canon. I want to hang out with the Korean women in this family." —Mary H.K. Choi, New York Times bestselling author
"No one can blend family, humor, satire, and love into a single perfect story like Maurene Goo can. I inhaled this book in a single sitting, lost in the magic of this tale of mothers and daughters and the weight of generational divides. I laughed, I sobbed, and now I want to hand this book to everyone I know." —Marie Lu, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Skyhunter
"I absolutely adored Throwback! It's fun and laugh-out-loud funny—but with a message that resonates and characters I couldn't stop thinking about. A tour de force from Maurene Goo, and a book I know I'll be returning to again and again." —Morgan Matson, New York Times bestselling author of Save the Date and Take Me Home Tonight
"With all the humor and heart that are Maurene Goo's specialty, Throwback is the fresh, funny, yet profoundly thoughtful time travel story you didn't know you needed—but trust me, you definitely do. An absolutely delightful book." —Veronica Roth, New York Times bestselling author of Divergent and Chosen Ones
"Inventive, fun and fresh, Throwback explores the mysteries of destiny, identity, and more than one kind of love." —Rebecca Stead, Newbery Award medalist and bestselling author of When You Reach Me
This information about Throwback was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Maurene Goo is the author of several acclaimed books for young adults, including I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Somewhere Only We Know. She's also written for Marvel's Silk series. She lives and writes in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and cats.
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