American Fantasy by Emma Straub

From New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow, an irresistible story about what happens when your teenage fantasy comes true after you're already an adult.

When the American Fantasy cruise ship sets sail for a four-day themed voyage, aboard are all five members of a famous, nineties-era boy band and three thousand screaming women who have worshipped them since childhood.

Feeling slightly out of place amid this crowd is Annie, here on a lark to appease her sister. Yet when the lights come up and the idols of her youth begin to sing, something is unlocked. Call it memory. Call it nostalgia. Call it the chemical reaction of hormones, hope, and sexual reawakening. Between the slushy alcoholic drinks, the familiar music, and the throngs of middle-aged women acting like lovesick teenagers, Annie finally reconnects to a long-submerged part of herself. By the time she meets one of the band members—not just a celebrity but someone in need of a friend—she has accessed a new sense of possibility.

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In a smart and incisive book packed with laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, aging, and marriage, Emma Straub delivers a richly textured story that shows us real passion is never truly lost, that what we love makes us who we are, and that deep meaning can sometimes be found in a sea of screaming fans.

Why I Picked It Up

Boy band book on a cruise sounded just about right. I love a good high-low premise, especially one that promises to weave in some more existential themes like what fandom says about aging or the trajectory of our lives. When done well, it really hits. Also, I know plenty of people who love Emma Straub, but I hadn't yet picked up a book of hers.

What It's About

The scope of the book is interesting because American Fantasy focuses on three individuals: Keith, a member of the boy band whose brother calls the shots; Sarah, the lesbian cruise director who's excellent at her job and at wrangling all of them; Annie, the reluctant (but earnest) fifty-something rediscovering herself after divorce. They each have varying relationships with the concept of the Boy Talk cruise and how about it can be dehumanizing and empowering depending on the scenario, etc.

I'd say a lot of the book's strongest points are when it talks about the group effects of euphoria, and what's an energy-giver (something I've been thinking about a lot lately) in that a lot of the baggage going along with the band can be so terrible, but its popularity is due to the escapism and the art itself becoming a larger entity. (There's a similar conversation in Daisy Jones & the Six about realizing when your art goes beyond you that it's a new beast.)

Voice & Tone

The voice of American Fantasy is very specific. It's tonally a bit ungenerous and by that, I mean it zeroes in on the "uglier" details of a glamorous vacation like this one—the sweat patches, the bodily, the characteristics in someone or something you try not to notice. It can feel almost harsh, which works for the kinds of dissonance-related questions the book is asking about girlhood and entertainment and the artificial, plasticky vacation delivered by slushy cocktails and cruise pamphlets. It's a book that reminds me of other books, but I can't pinpoint exactly which ones.

I'm blanking on how exactly to describe the voice. It's very specific, but also feels somehow distant from the characters. It's not quite to my preference in regards to prose because it's colorful but lacks a certain grip or traction; for example, I found it difficult to keep track of names because I didn't connect with the characters, although I underlined a few moments that felt particularly poignant or well-said.

I feel like Straub overall did a good job, but there were moments I thought she should have leaned into more and moments I thought she lingered on a little too much without resolution.

I would note that I think in a three-POV book, even in third-person, readers expect a little more collision between characters; this, instead, is more so just depicting each person's view of the fandom, event, their lives up until that point, etc. so may feel less finished than readers expect. I'd say it leans more into commentary than characterization: each figure as a vehicle for something else.

It could be a little absurd at times, which is what I was largely looking for when reading this, and sobering at others, which captures the oscillation many of the women on this cruise would experience.

Overall Thoughts

My library copy returned itself shortly after I finished, or else I would share some quotes here that I liked. Overall, I enjoyed American Fantasy for what it was.

I like a lot of the conversations we have around why we cling to forms of art and entertainment, or how a particular cultural moment—an event, a band, a trend—can become a symbol. I like chatting about art as prism, our attempts to hold onto the intangible, what you do when you're tallying the effects of your choices. Like a lot of the characters in this book, I've been mulling over questions of pivot and identity.

Her writing isn't particularly to my style, as I find terms of distance tend to be particular to writers as they move onto other books. It was just a little too far away for being a "quiet, intimate" book. As a plot, I probably wanted more, but it was an enjoyable read for the mood I was in.

For fans of:

Birds of California by Katie Cotugno; This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs; One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London; Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage; American Royals by Katharine McGee; Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield; etc.