There are pros and cons to Amazon’s recommendation engine. On the one hand, it’s uncovered books that I would have otherwise never found on my own. On the other hand, it can lead you into some really deep rabbit holes. Once you read a couple of books around a similar topic or theme, it recommends more of the same.

After I finished reading The Fold, I thought I’d exhausted the books about time travel on my reading list. Apparently, I didn’t. Next up on my reading list was All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai.

Stories built around the concepts of quantum physics and time travel appeal to me. I find them very interesting, so it’s no surprise they keep showing up in my Amazon recommendations. I’m always interested to see how an author deals with the concept of time travel and its (unintended) consequences.

I was pleasantly surprised with All Our Wrong Todays. When Tom Barren, our protagonist, travels back in time for a brief instant, he radically alters the future. And when I say radically, I mean radically. The twist is that upon his return to the present time, his time traveling self takes over his altered, present-day self. He’s left with a choice to make: does he attempt to return to the past to right his wrong, or does he assume the seemingly better life he has unintentionally created for himself.

I really enjoyed the book, the story behind how time travel came to be, and the unintended consequences that even the slightest perturbation of the past could have on the future. Mastai’s writing is witty, engaging, humorous, complex, and relatable. It makes for great reading. Possibly due to his screenwriting background, the book is written in very short chapters, which makes it easy to read. Knowing the chapters were just a few pages long caused me to fall into the trap of just one more, then I’ll put it down. One more, turned into one more, which turned into one more, and so on and so on.

The book is definitely a fun read. And while the overall concept regarding time travel is not a new one for me, I really liked how he developed an entertaining and engaging story around it. For that reason, and because of the writing style, I ultimately put it into my Must Read category. In summary, if you’ve enjoyed books like Dark Matter, Recursion, and The Midnight Library, then you will undoubtedly enjoy All Our Wrong Todays.