Emma Straub is a Guggenheim fellow and the New York Times bestselling author of seven books for adults, including American Fantasy, This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, Modern Lovers and The Vacationers. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

"As wickedly funny as it is achingly earnest...Straub has a blast with the shipboard absurdity, but she grants every character--including the men being watched from a thousand angles--a layered inner life. A fizzy escapist thrill ride with real insights on the isolation of celebrity, the community of fandom, and the liberation of middle age." --Oprah Daily

"Straub depicts a wonderfully immersive world...A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future."--Kirkus (STARRED REVIEW)

"Straub's hordes of fans will happily fall for Annie on her journey to figuring out what's next, and the very recognizable zeitgeist Straub captures so effortlessly." --Booklist

"A funny and poignant work about the pull of nostalgia and the appeal of second chances...American Fantasy is another Straub delight, a work whose light tone masks deeper meanings...[a] gift of a book." --BookPage

"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." --Ann Patchett, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"A treasure chest of a story, filled with Straub's signature warmth, humor, compassion, and insight. I rooted for these characters and worried about them, and by the end...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!" --Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters

"American Fantasy is such a fun, delicious, big-hearted book." --Taylor Jenkins Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"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." --Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

"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. And then you'll keep reading, trying to understand yourself better." -Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Cherry Baby

"Peak intelligence, and criminally readable." --Maria Semple, author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Pub date: 2026-04-07

Length: 304 pages