American Fantasy
- Published: 7 June 2025
- ISBN: 9781405946155
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 400
A gorgeous and witty storyteller
Elizabeth Gilbert
Funny, poignant and beautifully observed
Jojo Moyes on THE VACATIONERS
Straub writes beautifully and amusingly . . . hard to beat for sheer charm and gentle wit
Daily Mail
Hugely talented . . . intelligent holiday reading
Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4
Straub writes with such verve and sympathetic understanding of her characters . . . Reading this novel has all the pleasures of reading one of Anne Tyler's compelling family portraits
New York Times
A funny and insightful look at love and relationships
Good Housekeeping
Emma Straub [is] the queen of the smart-girl summer read
Entertainment Weekly
Come for the nostalgia, stay for the tenderness
Elle
Emma Straub is most famous for her wry, warm novels exploring how our relationships shape, delight, wound, and, ultimately, sustain us
Oprah Daily
It’s Straub, so you know it’s going to be funny, touching, and filled with family drama.
Glamour
A totally engaging and smart book about the absolutely marvelous messiness of what makes up family; a wonderful book.
Elizabeth Strout on ALL ADULTS HERE
Straub has a gift for exposing larger truths through small, telling details. Her warmth and sense of humor electrify every page.
New York Magazine
American Fantasy is such a fun, delicious, big-hearted book.
Taylor Jenkins Reid
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
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.
Rainbow Rowell
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
Wow, who knew that what my life was missing was a book about boats and boybands?! This is a treasure chest of a story, filled with Straub’s signature warmth, humour, compassion and insight. I rooted for these characters and worried about them, and by the end, much like the Talkers, 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