This is my new favorite book of all-time. At most, in the top 3 and I don’t think I will be over it any time soon. If you love mother/daughter stories, the 1990’s, or are a huge fan of Back to the Future, then you will most definitely love Maurene Goo’s Throwback.
Samantha Kang is a Gen Z teen in 2025, who hasn’t quite figured out where life is headed yet. She often argues with her first-generation Korean American mother, Priscilla, who had a very different high school experience when she was a teenager. After an argument with her mom that leaves her stranded, Sam books a ride via a mysterious rideshare app that ends up taking her all the way back to the year 1995, where she meets a 17-year-old Priscilla. Sam may be stuck in the past with outdated views and tech as she helps her mother win homecoming queen - a defining moment that changed Priscilla’s relationship with her own mother, Sam’s grandmother Halmoni - but, she also begins to realize that there is more to her mom than she thought, as well as what her own future may be.
I absolutely love this book! I cried seeing Sam and Priscilla’s relationship grow and the impact they had on each other that becomes, quite frankly, timeless. As a mother/daughter story, I like how Goo looks at it through a time traveling perspective. By being in the past and witnessing first hand who Priscilla was and the relationship she had with Halmoni, Sam begins to understand why certain high school aspirations like popularity and becoming homecoming queen mattered so much to her mom. There is an idealism to it tied with a youthful first-gen optimism of the American Dream. It’s a simple but indelible reminder how parents were teenagers once too with hopes and dreams.
Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies. So, to see it in a similar form set during a decade I grew up in and featuring Asian characters instantly stole my heart. It’s nostalgic in reminding me what that era was like (for better and for worse), and at the same time feels so relevant.
Throwback is a must-read that everyone needs to pick up soon! It’s funny, sentimental, relatable, and will make you want to hug your mom a little bit tighter.
Additional Thoughts:
- The other characters apart from Sam, Priscilla, and Halmoni are just as great.
- There is a subplot involving a time-crossed romance that makes the ending even more perfect.
- Don’t overthink too much on the science of time travel here. Just know that much of it is similar to how it was handled in Back to the Future but without The Delorean and Sam having to worry about if she will be born.
- The pop culture references had me laughing, especially through Sam’s honest POV. I will now be using “Jordan Catalano bad news” when referring to questionable men.
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