I truly enjoyed reading this book! The struggle of mother daughter relationships is one as old as time; when you throw in the generational expectations of immigrant mother daughter relationships can be a battlefield. I was made to care about Sam, Priscilla , and Halmoni. The premise of a daughter traveling back in time to befriend her mother as teenager and fix things so that she can return to present day was interesting even if we have seen it before in a famous movie. It was heart wrenching at times having Sam deal with knowing her Halmoni was comatose in present day, yet seeing her in the past and not knowing what would happen once she went back home. The pressure that immigrants and first generation Americans feel to make the most of the sacrifices the immigrant parents have made coming to the Promise Land. This was a really relatable story.

I would love to interview Maurene Goo for her book, Throwback on my podcast Raise Your Words. Perfect for fans of Back to the future. I loved seeing Samantha’s relationship with her mom.

📚: Throwback by Maureen Goo (@maurenegoo)
⭐️: 5/5

This was - quite possibly - the FUNNEST book I’ve read. I absolutely loved it, cover to cover, and yes, #inonesitting. I laughed out loud. One part had me crying. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Samantha Kang is a true Gen Z high school senior in 2025. And one thing that appears to hold true a couple years in the future? Teenage angst toward your mother. Priscilla, grew up in the 90s wanting to be the all-American girl conjured up in an episode of the OG 90210 or a John Hughes movie. (Things that Sam and her Gen Z self have 0% interest in.)

After a blowout fight, and regrettable words, Samantha finds herself trying to move forward… by going back in time 30 years. It turns out while Samantha finds out everything about her mom from the 90s, she also learns about herself along the way. (But seriously, how is she supposed to get back home to 2025?!)

I know this premise is very Back To The Future/Freaky Friday and could come across kitschy (and we know how I typically feel about time travel tropes), but this is done so 👏🏽 incredibly 👏🏽 well with superb writing, a quick pace, and all the 90s cultural references to warm my elder millennial soul (and yes, the casual 90s racism that gave me the right level of realistic ick.) Bonus points for the high school landscape of 2025 to sound so idyllic - one can only hope.

Major thanks to @zandoprojects via @netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. Throwback comes out on April 11th, 2023! #gifted

Best book of 2023 so far!
First, thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of Throwback. I LOVED this book. Sam goes back in time like Back to the future style but it's 1995 and her goal is to get her mom crowned homecoming queen...or so she thinks. I didn't want this book to end...I WANT MORE! This is my first time reading a Maurene Goo book but I loved her style and will definitely be checking out more of her stuff.

Who doesn't love a good time travel book.

Samantha "Sam" Kang was set back to the 90s to high school via a ride share app Thowback Rides. Her belief when getting there is that helping her mom win Homecoming queen will help repair the relationship that Sam mother has with her grandmother. But while on journey to help, she is is on her way also finding herself.

While the book was off to a slow start, it did really picked up after she got sent back to the 90s, I loved all the 90s reference but also showing that growing up during that time wasn't as great as we thought it was.

Thank you zando publish and netgalley for the earc in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this story so much! It is about communication through the generations and within a family. Sam is a Korean-American teen in high school. She and her mother, Priscilla, do not understand each other but Sam and her Grandmother, Halmoni, adore each other. Priscilla really wants Sam to run for Homecoming Queen, but Sam is uninterested. They have a big fight and Sam is transported back to the nineties when her mother is in high school. Because of the two different times, Sam learns so much about her mother. The book is so beautifully written and pulls on the heartstrings.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

What’s your favorite 90’s tv show?

For me it was Saturday morning cartoons. Recess anyone? What about Pepper Ann? I can still hear the intro songs in my head when I see the name!

Samantha like many teenagers, butts heads with her mom, Priscilla – a first generation Korean American. Priscilla was an all American girl, complete with being a cheerleader. Samantha on the other wants nothing to do with overly cliched high school aspirations. One night when Samantha and her mom get into a knock out fight, Samantha is left alone at the mall and hails a ride share to take her to school. Little does she know that this particular ride share will take her back in time – to when her mom was in high school. Will Samantha be able to figure out why she’s here before time runs out? Maybe this time will allow her to understand her mom better.

This was a fun YA romance that was really enjoyable for my non YA self. I really loved the movie 13 going on 30 and the like and this one gave off those vibes. This book was a great exploration of teenager/parent relationships. As a mother to a young child – this is something I am reading about now, in hopes to be prepared – but I’m sure there is no preparation lol. This was an engrossing read that I didn’t want to put down and even delayed dinner because I was so caught up in it!

Thank you so much to Zando Projects, Zando Young Readers @zandoprojects), NetGalley (@netgalley), and the author, Maurene Goo (@maurenegood) for this e-arc in exchange for this honest review.

Make sure to grab your copy April 11th!

Freaky Friday mixed with back to the future, Throwback was amazing from start to finish. This was so entertaining and fun whilst also broaching more series issues such as racial and social prejudices. I loved Sam as a character and her development throughout the book - she's generally a really fun character but she has a lot of emotional depth and I enjoyed seeing her layers being peeled back along with her mother. I also loved the essence of the 90's it added an extra uniqueness for me and allowed the book to not be just a typical YA but address how much the world has actual evolved with a lot of things.

This was slow to start but I am so glad I stuck with it. Goo recreates a 90s high school with all of its challenges and delights whil offering a sweet multigenerational story about a Korean family and their love for each other. This was a fun and quirky read.

Throwback written by Maurene Goo. This is my first book by Ms Goo and I now claim her as one of my favorites! The book totally consumed me and I felt like I was going through all of the same things right next to Samantha and Priscilla! Seeing the unfairness of prejudice and how things were in the past after having witnessed it all first hand in the 80’s. Thank goodness things aren’t that way now…. Much. I loved so much about the story and I am already planning to read it again!!

I really enjoyed this one! This Freaky Friday-esque novel is a great read for both mom's and their teens, to have an inside look at how the other side views and experiences the relationship. Without being a self-help book and actually being a fun fiction read, it reminds us to see things from each other's perspective and try to understand each other. It also does a good job exploring racism and the experience of immigrants

The 90's throwbacks we're so fun for someone having grown up in the 90's.

“Throwback” is a fun new YA offering featuring three generations of women in a Korean-American family. There is a “Back to the Future” storyline, only modern and with an Asian twist.

Sam is a teenage girl who is a Senior in high school. She is very close with her grandmother, but has a difficult relationship with her mother. Sam can’t understand why her mother acts the way that she does.

After yet another argument with her mother, Sam uses a rideshare app to get to school. But when she arrives at school, she finds herself in the 1990s, the time when her mother went to high school.

Sam figures out that in order to get back to her old familiar life she must help Highschool Mom improve her relationship with her mother, Sam’s grandmother. Oh, and also she has to see that her mother is crowned Homecoming Queen.

The trip back to the 90s was interesting. The clothes, the hair, the music and the attitudes confound Sam. Even more challenging for her is the absence of technology. There are no smartphones, no computers, no Google, nothing but the public library and microfiche for help researching. And Sam, in order to fit in, has to be careful not to use twentieth-century vocabulary or slang.

Sam is frequently appalled at the casual racism and sexism she encounters in the 90s. She tries to explain to the 1990s people that they are being offensive, but they genuinely don’t understand and think she is strange. They just aren’t ready yet.

The book features Korean culture in the form of Korean language and cooking. It also illustrates the many differences between Sam’s grandmother, Sam’s mother, and Sam herself. Each generation assimilated more American culture but also lost some of its Korean customs and traditions.

The book is well written and the plot moves along nicely. Although it touches on some serious issues, it is generally a light and engaging story. There is a bit of romance, but, as a Young Adult novel, the romance is clean and casual.

I highly recommend this touching and entertaining book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, available April 11, 2023.

My thanks to the author, to Zando Young Readers, and to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book.

#Throwback #NetGalley #YoungAdult

I received a free ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Once again Maurene Goo writes a cute book that I am happy to read. In the beginning, I felt like it might have only been a three-star book but it just kept getting better and better. The relationship between Priscilla and Sam in the past was so much fun to watch. It is amazing how far we have come for racism in the past but yet we have so much farther to go. Recommend this to anyone looking for a good read, with some depth but also light heartedness. I mean come on it has time travel!

Really enjoyed Throwback. I loved how Maureen took the time-travel nature of this book and made it feel like I was reliving my high school in the 90s. I loved Sam's character and really related to her mother, Priscilla. Who hasn't felt misunderstood by their parents as a teenager? I loved how it was a modern time travel and that they had effects in the future timeline. The only thing missing in this book is more information on how the present was altered for the other students based on the changes in 1995. I really wish this book was longer with those details.

I would really recommend this book to any YA reader who feels their parents don't understand them and to any adult who feels their kids are ungrateful for their hard work as parents.

The book was entertaining, heartwarming, and had me reading late into the night every night until I finished it. I was curious how the author would wrap the ending up and was not disappointed.

I liked the broaching of social prejudices and lgbtqia inclusion but was very distracted by the pronouns used for Val. It got the point across about gender neutrality but I seemed to get distracted from the flow of the story each time I came upon the plural pronoun. At first I thought they were grammatical errors until I realized the author was being inclusive.

Since I am not Korean, I didn’t know if Halmoni was her grandmother’s name or if it was *grandmother” in Korean. Interjecting a translation in parentheses next to the Korean terms when they are first introduced would be nice for those who don’t know what it means,

There are not a lot of books out there based on Asian culture, so being of Asian decent, even though not of Korean decent, am always on the lookout. It was very true to what I experienced growing up as an Asian during that time frame. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

When I caught this book on Netgalley, I found myself intrigued by the premise. A little bit of Back to the Future meets somewhat of a different version of Freaky Friday. The only thing is that there is no body swap but imagine having fought with your mom and being tossed back into her high school years!

Sam and her mother are complete polar opposites. Her mother is a straight-laced lawyer who pushes her daughter to be the best, at least in what she wants her to be. She demands perfection from her daughter and even wants her to start applying to colleges that are prestigious. But Sam does not want to be part of her mother's perfection. She wants her own things and to be her own person.

But a fight with her mother causes Sam to be tossed back into the past. She now has to do something to change her mother's life in high school. Will Sam be able to do so?

This story was funny and sad at times. I loved Sam and her mother, Priscilla. These two could not be two different people. Both stubborn and unyielding to the other person. I also see that Priscilla got most of her thoughts from her mother - be perfect, be Homecoming Queen, be the best, and unfortunately this would carry onto the future.

The storyline is unique and fun. The characters are great along the way, and I think, that generational communication can be complicated along the way. People are expected to act and dress according to what generations believe they should be. Any rebellion is frowned upon. This is what we see from Priscilla and her mother to Priscilla and Sam. I am just glad that the two were able to patch things up in the end. I love stories that add closure between characters and offer both to look at each other in a new light.

I feel every generation that comes and goes that there will always be something neither of them will ever agree on and this discourse could easily carry into other future generations. I think each generation should not put so much on the shoulders of the next and expect them to be able to pick up the pieces that they are left with.

Also, can I say I love Marge? Marge needs her own fanclub. That woman was wonderful! We need more of her in the future!


Thank you, Netgalley, the author, and their publishing company for a chance to read this book and give an honest opinion about its subject.

Thank you to NetGalley and Zando for providing me with an early copy in exchange for my honest review!

This book is a perfect combination of Back to the Future and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

It features Sam, her mom Priscilla, and Priscilla’s mom Halmoni. Sam and Priscilla have a hard time seeing eye to eye when it comes to things that are important to the both of them and not understanding each other. That is a theme that is present in Priscilla’s relationship with her mom.

It looks at the relationships between first generation immigrant parents and their children, who are now growing up in a country very different from the one their parents grew up in, and examines the ways that the past follows you, through the relationships with your family.

This book was emotional, funny, and hopeful. Hopeful for the future where parents and children can understand each other while maybe not always agreeing with each other.

This book releases on April 11, 2023 and I highly recommend you add it to your TBR.

5 stars. I LOVED this book! It's such a fun, heartwarming, and engrossing read. As the daughter of Asian immigrants myself, I thought this book captured the nuances of that kind of relationship perfectly. I highly recommend this read to anyone looking for something uplifting and delightful. I usually dislike reading romance, but it was written very well in this story and didn't take over the book. I can't wait to read more from Maurene Goo! Thank you to NetGalley and Zando Projects for this ARC!

Some of the generational writing was cheesy, it was a bit slow to start as we navigated the back in time narrative tropes I was already familiar with, and there were too many pop culture references and "gen z" characterisation for my preference. But overall this was fun and super readable, and delivered exactly what was promised! I loved Priscilla deeply (she was more interesting of the two characters to me) and the ultimately the mother and daughter relationship did make me emotional. The romance was also cute!

What a ride! This book gave me all the feels of my favorite nineties romcoms. From the start, I knew the story was more than funny and clever, it was incredibly emotional and I teared up on more than one occasion. It's an authentic account of the diasporic experience wrapped up in a hilarious and lovable package!