All Our Wrong Todays
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Average rating3.8
"There's no such thing as the life you're "supposed" to have ... You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed. because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and--maybe, just maybe--his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom's search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future--our future--is supposed to be. All Our Wrong Todays is about the versions of ourselves that we shed and grow into over time. It is a story of friendship and family, of unexpected journeys and alternate paths, and of love in its multitude of forms. Filled with humor and heart, and saturated with insight and intelligence and a mind-bending talent for invention, this novel signals the arrival of a major talent"--
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Great time-travelling tale! Audio was great as narrated by the author.
I have to be upfront here - I don't read science fiction at all because I don't understand it much. All the scientific terms go way over my head and I don't feel the same emotional connect that I probably would with a dystopian fantasy or historical fiction. The only SF book that I remember reading before this is Dark Matter which was quite good because I let all the technical aspects go and treated it like a romantic thriller.
Coming to this book, the premise sounded interesting and I had a feeling it would not be too technical. It started off really well and I thought I would love it. Tom lives in a different 2016 which he calls a techno-utopian paradise. Everything that mankind dreamed would be technologically possible has happened - flying cars, teleportation, jet packs, space vacations, moon bases, hover cars and so much more. His father is a scientific genius in the field of time travel who is disappointed with his ordinary son. Tom falls for another genius perfect woman and when tragedy occurs, impulsively goes back in time to the moment when the world was set on its high technological advancement trajectory. And unexpectedly, lands up in our 2016; with a more loving father, a living mother, a sister he never knew he could have and the love of his life. He is also a sort of genius here but with a different name. And the remaining book deals with his struggles in this world, his guilt of destroying his old reality and his desire to stay here with this loving family.
Only when Tom/John decides to find the genius behind his world's technological advances that the book gets too much for me. It goes into various details about the technicalities of time travel which I did not understand. And everything that happens later is quite confusing and I am not sure how we arrived at the ending. On the whole, the book turned into something that I didn't expect. I did not enjoy it as much I wanted to but it has enough good plot and writing to impress anyone who is more interested or aware of the genre.
4.5 out of 5 stars – see this review and others here.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Mashup: The Martian + Dark Matter + Back to the Future
It was truly a delight to read a novel with such a perfect blend of wit, adventure, and poignancy. Mastai writes with a smart, self-assured edge that makes his wonderfully absurd plot feel plausible and all the complexities of time travel seem straightforward. I fully expect (and hope) that All Our Wrong Todays will be a hit when it is released next year and I look forward to the movie adaptation that is already in the works.
