Not every story needs a love story

Another book where I appreciated the concept more than the execution. One of my very best friends is a writer (first book being published next spring!!) so this gives me hope because it means that the world of novels still needs talent. Derailed. I may have had some hotel wine. But. This book. Yay?

All Our Wrong Todays is a time travel novel that tries to ironically embrace but ultimately can’t get past the fact that the narrator is a massive fuck up who took the place of a much more qualified woman and made everything so very much worse. Tom is the far from genius son of a massively genius father who is in his thirties, can’t get his life started, and lives in a 2016 far far divorced from our own. You see, in the 60s, a brilliant physicist invented a device that basically creates unlimited clean energy and for the last half century technology has developed in a limitless world. All of humanity’s material needs are taken care of and really all that matters anymore is entertainment. Until Tom fucks it all up.

In a series of increasingly unfortunate events, Tom sends himself back in time and stops that physicist from ever doing his physicist thing. It was never supposed to be Tom time traveling. It was supposed to be Penelope. She was the massively overqualified, trained in ever scenario, ready for anything chrononaut, and he … had the right dad. Literally that’s it. Tom acknowledges his massive shortcomings, but I would have much rather read about Penelope’s successes than Tom’s failures.