Book Review: All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (2017)

This was a fun read and a real page turner for me. All Our Wrong Todays is an alternate timeline/time-travel story warped by the crushing specter of personal despair and family drama. While I see this book as not being everyone’s cup of tea, its strength lies in the fact that you simply don’t know what’s going to happen next while our anti-hero, Tom, deals with what a fuck-up he is. (This is the really the only trope the book gives service to in a genre littered with tropes.) The book has some great lines, such as, “Every invention introduces you to the accident of that invention” and this goes for people, as well. If there’s a downside to the book, it would be that too often our (anti)hero is written in an immature and crass way with too much dialogue to reflect this and his inability to truly explore the philosophical implications of his actions. Tom, the (anti)hero is not someone we could admire but I believe he reflects that dark side of ourselves that we hate to admit exists sometimes, like when we’re having a bad mental day, except for him its about every day. Thus, Tom manages to get where his is thanks to a father he hates. (On that note, I would remind a lot of reviewers that protagonists need to be real, not necessarily liked.) While there are slow parts of the book that derail the sci-fi elements of the story, this is still pop-culture filler in the vein of Dark Matter and Recursion that’s sweet enough to let dissolve on our tongues.


Final Score: a strong 8/10 

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