Gettin' nostalgic for...

The 2008 financial crisis?
The Futures by Anna Pitoniak is the ticket back to the financial crisis of '08 that nobody asked for. If you get misty for the days of fallen hedge fund heroes this should satisfy your inexplicable craving for that dismal period of recent memory. Meet Julia and Evan (*eyeroll*), young Yale graduates on the edge of the future. Scrappy small town Canadian Evan gets the privileged and perfect girl of his dreams / Julia is living a privileged and perfect life with her hedge fund manager boyfriend but she just can't figure herself out and *tiny violins* for real. It's a he said, she said-style narrative so of course there's gonna be cheating, which always makes for a good read, and I for one can't resist a good ol' marriage in crisis story. Read it if you're in the mood for a crumbling relationship with a side of crumbling economy!

BTW, Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue was the NYC-set book to read about this particular period, also with a marriage at the center, should you feel the sudden need to reminisce about that time when everybody lost their pensions.

Geeking out in the 80s?
Let's hear it for the nerds, am I right? The Impossible Fortress features kids that remind one of the beloved pack of misfits from Stranger Things. What's better than coming of age stories featuring great friendships? And set in the 80s too? The 80s had the best friends.
This book has it all: a geeky trio of misfit guy pals; an impossible quest for a much coveted issue of Playboy; lots of nerding out over programming video games on a Commodore 64; young love. It's funny, and clever, and lovable, and I want to read it again.

Speaking of great 80s kids and formative friendships, half of Swing Time by Zadie Smith is spot on! The other half a little less so--[spoiler alert] when the narrator grows up and goes to work for someone who seems an awful lot like Madonna, but after several eye-rolling chapters of asking yourself "and why do I care?" you'll be nostalgic for the beginning of the book when it was a pitch perfect tale of awesome 80s girlhood and best friends, and when you finish it you'll be nostalgic for On Beauty.

Too Soon? Check out the latest in 90s Nostalgia

How does this picture make you feel?

Alice & Oliver
by Charles Bock

This book is so chock full of 90s references reading it was like getting stomped into a puddle of Crystal Pepsi by a pair of Doc Martens in a mosh pit. In sort of the same way, it's an intensely raw and intimate portrayal of a young family's struggle with Leukemia. Drawn from Charles Bock's own experiences, the titular Alice is diagnosed with Leukemia shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Doe. The novel takes the reader deep inside Alice and Oliver's lives as they try to hold it together while navigating a healthcare nightmare and a terrible illness. In some ways, the often brutal, and fairly graphic, depictions of Alice's treatment and deteriorating physical condition, and the toll the disease takes on their relationship, reminds me of reading A Little Life--it can be a tough read but the personal connection to Bock's characters makes it worthwhile. It's an emotional roller coaster loaded with with 90s high technology and New York life.

Every Anxious Wave
by Mo Daviau

Karl Bender is an aging 90s rocker with a bar in Chicago and a few loyal barflys to keep him company. He also has a homemade time machine in his bedroom closet. He sends paying music lovers back in time to catch whatever legendary performances they always wished they could have seen. REM in Athens in before they were huge? Sure! Missed that one Sebadoh show? No problem. Until one day he accidentally sends Wayne, the guy who built his time machine, back to 980 instead of 1980 where he gets stuck and can't return. Karl finds an astrophysicist at the University to help him get Wayne back, and accidentally falls in love. This book is just downright fun. It's a touching, quirky-cute, time-traveling apocalyptic weird science romance with so much 90s music nostalgia you'll feel like you're backstage at a Pavement show.

Landline
by Rainbow Rowell

If you love Rainbow Rowell, you'll probably love this book. If you were a teenager in the 90s and you read YA, you'll probably really love this book. It's romantic YA for adults who get nostalgic over how their teenage romances played out over long and twisted phone cords, and it's really funny. Like Every Anxious Wave, this is also a time-traveling romance, or perhaps it's more of an inter-dimensional romance.
TV writer Georgie is having trouble in her marriage. She cancels on yet another trip to visit her husband's folks over the holidays. Fed up, he packs up the kids and goes anyway. She stumbles on a way to communicate with her husband's past self using the rotary phone in her childhood bedroom. What better vehicle than a landline to transport us to our pre-iPhone teenage selves?

I hear Clearly Canadian is coming back, you guys.