American Fantasy

American Fantasy is such a fun, delicious, big-hearted book.

American Fantasy is such a fun, delicious, big-hearted book.

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.

Wow, who knew that what my life was missing was a book about boats and boybands?! This is a treasure chest of a story, filled with Straub’s signature warmth, humour, compassion and insight. I rooted for these characters and worried about them, and by the end, much like the Talkers, 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!

So much fun but with such depth to the characters. Looking at midlife through Annie’s lens is a buoying experience. Even though it's super accurate about the reckonings of mid-life, the tone is blithe and hopeful, and that is so NEEDED right now. I can’t TELL you the enjoyment it gave me.

Peak intelligence and criminally readable

A delicious novel about being a grown-up girl who once loved something very, very much. You don't have to be a fan of something to love American Fantasy , but if you've ever truly devoted yourself to a boy band or a TV show or even a series of books, you will feel so understood by this novel.

American Fantasy is written by Emma Straub, so obviously it is poignant, nuanced and unexpectedly hilarious. I didn’t know how badly I needed to be fully transported to a boy band cruise ship. Cheaper than therapy, and a lot more fun!

Emma Straub is the most empathetic and open-hearted writer in literature. It is pure joy to see her turn to the emotionally complicated territory of teenage nostalgia and what it means to reconnect with the feelings of youth from the realities of middle age. In American Fantasy Straub uncovers the beauty and regret of reconciling who we once were with who we are now.

Straub writes with such verve and sympathetic understanding of her characters . . . Reading this novel has all the pleasures of reading one of Anne Tyler's compelling family portraits

Straub writes beautifully and amusingly . . . hard to beat for sheer charm and gentle wit

Emma Straub is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels, The Vacationers , Modern Lovers , Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures , All Adults Here and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in twenty countries. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.