Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Children’s, Teenage & Educational

THROWBACK

Maurene Goo

Back to the Future meets The Joy Luck Club in this YA contemporary romance about a Korean American girl sent back to the '90s to (reluctantly) help her teenage mom win Homecoming Queen.

Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what's harder? Being the daughter of one. Samantha Kang has never gotten along with her mother, Priscilla, and has never understood her bougie-nightmare, John Hughes high school expectations. After a huge fight between them, Sam is desperate to move forwardbut instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.

To her shock, Sam finds herself back in high school . . . in the '90s . . . with a 17-year-old Priscilla. Now this Gen Z girl must try to fit into an analog world. She's got the fashion down, but everything else is baffling. What is "microfiche"? What's with the casual racism and misogyny? And why does it feel like Priscilla is someone she could actually be . . . friends with?

Sam's blast to the past has her finding the right romance in the wrong time while questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom . . . and herself. Will Sam figure out what she needs to do to fix things for her mom so that she can go back to a time she understands? Brimming with heart and humor, Maurene Goo's time-travel romance asks big questions about what exactly one inherits and loses in the immigrant experience.

Maurene Goo is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning author of young adult novels, comics writer, and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages, received multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Booklist, been placed on many school, library, and state reading lists and has appeared on several "Best Book" lists, including NPR, Cosmo, The Boston Globe, The New York Public Library and The Los Angeles Public Library. She is the recipient of the California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award and a finalist for the California Book Award. Her novels I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Somewhere Only We Know are currently being developed into feature films by Netflix. In 2021 she completed a widely lauded and successful run as writer for Marvel's newly rebooted Silk series and is currently writing a feature film for Sony Pictures Animation.

Available products
Book Published 2023-04-11 by Zando Books

Comments

French: Milan ; Portuguese (Brazil): Companhia das Letras

Throwback is one of those rare books that manages to unearth deep truths with the lightest of touches. It's funny and big-hearted, romantic, and delightfully unexpected in the best way. It was a true pleasure to read.

With all the humor and heart that are Maurene Goo's specialty, Throwback is the fresh, funny, yet profoundly thoughtful time travel story you didn't know you needed - but trust me, you definitely do. An absolutely delightful book.

No one can blend family, humor, satire, and love into a single perfect story like Maurene Goo can. I inhaled this book in a single sitting, lost in the magic of this tale of mothers and daughters and the weight of generational divides. I laughed, I sobbed, and now I want to hand this book to everyone I know.

Time travel, romance, and mother-daughter issuesthe laughs, tears, and insights in acclaimed author Maurene Goo's upcoming novel Throwback made it one of the most sought-after YA acquisitions of last year, setting off a 10-house auction that was won by Tiffany Liao, who joined independent publisher Zando as executive editor in May 2021. Partially inspired by Back to the Future, Throwback was pitched as a John Hughes movie meets Freaky Friday meets The Joy Luck Club. It's scheduled for release April 11, 2023, and its cover, designed by Natalie Sousa and featuring illustrations by Kemi Mai Willan, is seen here for the first time. Read more...

Inventive, fun and fresh, Throwback explores the mysteries of destiny, identity, and more than one kind of love.

I absolutely adored Throwback! It's fun and laugh-out-loud funny - but with a message that resonates and characters I couldn't stop thinking about. A tour de force from Maurene Goo, and a book I know I'll be returning to again and again.

Throwback is as fun and feel-good as your favorite '90s teen flick but wrapped up in a beautifully written and poignant story of mothers, daughters, the immigrant experience, and the 'American dream.' Maurene Goo writes with heart, humor, tenderness and an unabashed optimism that will remind readers what's worth believing in - and the importance of being true to yourself. No other author out there is doing it like Maurene, and Throwback is her best yet. An absolute triumph by an unparalleled talent.