I know I said last week that female protagonists of a certain age were few and far between in fiction. And it’s true they are, but sometimes the universe decides your reading life is going have a few serendipitous book pairings. When I started listening to the audiobook of This Time Tomorrow, it was not because of the age of the main character. It was because Emily Henry blurbed the book and I love Emily Henry. And there’s time travel. So I decided to give it a whirl.
Our heroine, Alice Stern, is turning forty. She’d like a washer/dryer in her apartment and for her dad not to be terminally ill. Her job is fine, her boyfriend is decent, and her life is going along without much particular direction. But when Alice wakes up the day after her 40th birthday she finds herself in her old bedroom and her 16-year-old body. It’s the morning of her 16th birthday, her dad is relatively young and healthy and Alice has the disorienting chance to live this day over again, with the benefit of knowing what the future holds. Or so she thinks.