American Fantasy is an irresistible story about what happens when your teenage fantasy comes true after you’re already an adult.
LitStackers! Get ready to add another title to your “TBR” list! American Fantasy by Emma Straub is in presale and generating serious buzz. This novel from Riverhead Books | Penguin Random House set for publication Apr 7, 2026, has early readers buzzing. We’re showing you what’s on the book cover, from the publisher’s official description to the early reviews that suggest this book is one you want to pre-order today. Here we go!
In This Spotlight On American Fantasy
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About American Fantasy
When the American Fantasy cruise ship sets sail for a four-day themed voyage, aboard are all five members of a famous 1990s boyband, and three thousand screaming women who have worshipped them for thirty years.
Newly divorced and with an empty nest, Annie is on board as a lark to appease her sister. Once a diehard fan of the band as a teen, her tastes have matured, and she feels out of place amid the sea of bedazzled, air-brushed t-shirts bearing the singers’ faces. Yet when the lights come up and the idols of her youth begin to sing before her, something is unlocked. “Maybe that was nostalgia after all, the music a direct vein to her childhood, the least complicated part of her life. A short cut to happiness.”
Between the slushy alcoholic drinks, the music of her youth, and the thousands of middle-aged women acting like lovesick teenagers, Annie finally reconnects to a long-submerged part of herself. By the time she befriends one of the band members—not just a celebrity but someone also in need of a friend—she feels like anything is possible. But a lot can go wrong on a ship ruled by hormones and hope, frustration and fantasy.
Packed with wisdom, heart, and laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, youth, nostalgia, marriage, and middle age, Emma Straub delivers a richly textured, uplifting story about the magic of revisiting youthful feelings, and the even greater magic of starting anew.
Praise for American Fantasy
“Straub depicts a wonderfully immersive world…A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“Straub’s hordes of fans will happily fall for Annie on her journey to figuring out what’s next, and the very recognizable zeitgeist Straub captures so effortlessly.”—Booklist
“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, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“A treasure chest of a story, filled with Straub’s signature warmth, humor, compassion, and insight. I rooted for these characters and worried about them, and by the end…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, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters
“American Fantasy is such a fun, delicious, big-hearted book.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“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, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
“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. And then you’ll keep reading, trying to understand yourself better.”—Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Cherry Baby
“Peak intelligence, and criminally readable.”—Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette
About Emma Straub, Author of American Fantasy
[author bio]
Emma Straub is the New York Times bestselling author of six books for adults: the novels This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and her work has been published in more than 20 languages. Emma and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.
You can connect with Emma Straub on her website, and on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Souce: Publisher
Publisher: Riverhead Books | Penguin Random House
ISBN Hardcover 9798217046850
Pub Date Apr 7, 2026
Other LitStack Spots – Titles by Emma Straub
LitStack has also spotted some titles by Emma Straub that belong on our TBR list, including This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub, All Adults Here by Emma Straub, and Modern Lovers by Emma Straub.
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