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A Novel
by Emma Straub
Book Reviewed by:From New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow, an irresistible story about what happens when your teenage fantasy comes true after you're already an adult.
When the American Fantasy cruise ship sets sail for a four-day themed voyage, aboard are all five members of a famous, nineties-era boy band and three thousand screaming women who have worshipped them since childhood.
Feeling slightly out of place amid this crowd is Annie, newly divorced, turning fifty with an empty nest, and here on a lark to appease her sister. Yet when the lights come up and the idols of her youth begin to sing, something is unlocked. Call it memory. Call it nostalgia. Call it the chemical reaction of hormones, hope, and sexual reawakening. Between the slushy alcoholic drinks, the familiar music, and the throngs of middle-aged women acting like lovesick teenagers, Annie finally reconnects to a long-submerged part of herself. By the time she meets one of the band members—not just a celebrity but someone in need of a friend—she has accessed a new sense of possibility.
In a smart and incisive book packed with laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, aging, marriage, and middle age, Emma Straub delivers a richly textured story that shows us real passion is never truly lost, that what we love makes us who we are, and that deep meaning can sometimes be found in a sea of screaming fans.
Excerpt
American Fantasy
"Okay," Annie said. "I didn't think their shirts were good. Vaguely threatening, no?" It felt cruel to say out loud, but Annie was thinking it—those women didn't look like they even played chess.
"Oh yeah," Maira said, nodding. "They're idiots." She waved her fork in the air like a magic wand. "But who cares? Let's go get a drink." The parties were supposed to start at 10 p.m., but it depended on how late the guys were to the evening entertainment and how much of a break they took in between. They'd done two Quiz Shows back to-back, performing for half the ship each time. In the tiki bar, half the stools were covered with purses or towels or the ubiquitous ID badges that every cruiser wore. In front of Annie, two uniformed American Fantasy employees dragged what looked like a volleyball net across the surface of the shallow swimming pool. A woman wearing a dress printed with photos of Keith's shirtless torso on it leaned out of their
way but kept dancing.
...
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/14/2026)
Our reading overlaps! I read Lolita with the Bookbrowse bookgroup (such good comments and discussion) and I'm currently reading Anna Karenina . I'm enjoying Anna but my library hold requests keep arriving and interrupting it. Latest is Emma Straub's American Fantasy . Not sure it's for me but it ...
-Vicki_F
A polder, from Clute and Grant's Encyclopedia of Fantasy, is the term for an enclave of "toughened reality," separated from the outside world by carefully maintained borders. A liminal threshold must be passed to enter a polder, whether it's Avalon, Tom Bombadil's cottage, or the members-only Costco food court. In Emma Straub's American Fantasy, that liminal threshold is the metal ramp of a cruise ship. Aboard the American Fantasy—the ship provides both the setting and title—Straub's three POV characters, supporting cast of boy band burnouts, and thousands of screaming, middle-aged women find an escape from the outside world and space to create their own fantasy. This isn't a story limited to diehard boy band fans—far from it. Rather, American Fantasy uses a hilarious premise to explore complex, existential questions of aging, community, and femininity...continued
Full Review
(780 words)
(Reviewed by Margaret Belford).
Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Tom Lake
I can hardly remember the last time I read anything that brought me such pure joy. I was up too late reading, then got up too early to go back to reading. All I wanted was American Fantasy. It brims with truth and humanity and insight, and it made me snort like a pig. I loved it. I think the entire country will love it. Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters
A treasure chest of a story, filled with Straub's signature warmth, humor, compassion, and insight. I rooted for these characters and worried about them, and by the end...I was completely swept away by my love for them. An unmitigated pleasure from start to finish, I did not want to return to dry land! Taylor Jenkins Reid, #1 As fantastical as the Boy Talk cruise seems in American Fantasy, it's roughly inspired by author Emma Straub's experiences aboard the annual New Kids on the Block cruise. The energy and community her character Annie finds with the Talkers is something many theme cruise participants speak to as a core part of their experiences, whether on a musical tour or a sci-fi adventure.
Details from the real-life "Blockheads" voyage are woven throughout Straub's fictional story. Thousands of excited ex-teenage girls with eternal crushes on rapidly-aging band members? Check. Cruise participants stealing the life-size decals of the band off the ship's walls? Check! Door decorations, nightly themes, and a live quiz show where ...
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Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do ...
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