These Books with ‘90s Nostalgia Take Us Way, Way Back (Exclusive)

Remember a blissful time when we had the mental space to feel existential dread instead of actual dread? When our dissatisfaction came adorably clothed in rumpled flannels and baggy jeans? When we had time to examine our relationships while listening to “complaint rock” and focusing on one major upheaval at a time?

When instead of social media, we just had … social lives?

For those living under a rock, the nineties are experiencing a renaissance, even with people too young to have experienced them (at least sentiently) the first time around. We’ve seen evidence in all corners of culture from fashion (hello cropped tops and bamboo earrings) to beauty (brown lipstick, anyone?) and, yes, now in books.

My brand new contemporary romance, Backslide (out Oct. 21 from Gallery Books), is no exception. With a Biggie, Mary J. Blige and Nirvana soundtrack, this dual timeline story follows Nellie and Noah as they fall in love, and then apart, in ‘90’s New York City and then finds them forced back together to confront the past in present-day at their friends’ wine country wedding redo.

Why throwback to the era of Zima and Olde E on Manhattan’s Upper West Side? Well, full-disclosure, I may have grown up in it. But also what a luxury to escape into that precious moment — before cell phones, before the widespread internet, when you could still accompany someone to their airport gate.

I’m not alone in my fascination with the period before we opened pandora’s box. While classics like High Fidelity and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are like time capsules, there’s a newer slew of 90’s throwback books for your reading pleasure. From memoir to literary fiction and from light to dark, these stories—though often complex in content—envelop us in simpler times.

‘Backslide’ by Nora Dahlia

Backslide by Nora Dahlia.

Gallery Books

Nellie Hurwitz doesn’t have a first love. She has a first hate: Noah. And she has refused to talk about what imploded their relationship since it ended abruptly near the end of high school in ‘90s NYC. Now, after two decades of avoiding each other, they’re forced back together at their best friends’ intimate vineyard vow renewal in Sonoma, Calif.

Despite their best intentions (and copious barbs and eye rolls), dangerously close quarters bring up feelings both Nellie and Noah have carefully locked away for years. The two can’t shake that old heady attraction. Ultimately, can they find a way to move forward? Or will they backslide and blow things up for good?

‘Night People: How To Be A Dj In ‘90s New York City’ by Mark Ronson

Night People by Mark Ronson.

Grand Central Publishing

A new heartfelt coming-of-age memoir from seven-time Grammy-winning record producer Mark Ronson, Night People conjures the undeniable magic of the city’s bygone nightlife — a time when clubs were diverse, glamorous and a little lawless … in the golden era of the ‘90s before Rudy Giuliani, camera phones and bottle service upended everything. A teenage Ronson finds his way — stalking DJ Stretch Armstrong, crate-digging, grinding gig after gig — and discovers a community of people who, in their own strange, cracked ways, lived for the night.

‘This Time Tomorrow’ by Emma Straub

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub.

Riverhead Books

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and her father’s, the past takes on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?

‘Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow’ by Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
Knopf

This inventive, very meta story begins in the December of Sam Masur’s junior year at Harvard, when he spots Sadie Green (who he knew as a child and is studying at MIT) on a subway platform. Before long, these friends borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster video game, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs — but nothing can protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

‘Big Girl’ by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan.

Liveright

Growing up in a rapidly changing Harlem, 8-year-old Malaya hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings. The pressures of her predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are relentless, as are the expectations of her painfully proper mother and sharp-tongued grandmother. As she comes of age in the 1990s, she finds solace in the music of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, but her weight continues to climb, until a family tragedy forces her to face the true source of her hunger.

‘All The Men I’ve Loved Again’ by Christine Pride

All the Men I’ve Loved Again by Christine Pride.

Atria Books

It’s 1999, TLC’s “No Scrubs” is topping the charts, y2k is looming on everyone’s mind and Cora Belle has arrived at college ready to grow out of the shy, sheltered girl who attended an all-white prep in her all-white suburb. What she’s totally unprepared for is Lincoln — because how can you ever prepare for the rollercoaster of first love?

When a series of surprises and secrets threaten to upend everything, Cora meets Aaron, the only man who seems to get her. Finally, 20 years later, when Cora has chosen loneliness over vulnerability, the two men resurface, testing everything she knows about fate, love and herself.

‘Kate & Frida’ by Kim Fay

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay.

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Twenty-something Frida Rodriguez comes to butter-soaked Paris in 1991 with visions of becoming a war correspondent. But when she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, she accidentally meets bookseller Kate Fair — and they inspire each other in unexpected ways.

Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives — personally and globally — Kate and Frida show each other how to overcome self-doubt and embrace joy even through their darkest hours in the last precious years before the internet changed everything.

‘Workhorse’ By Caroline Palmer

Workhorse by Caroline Palmer.

Flatiron Books

Written by a onetime Vogue editor, this novel follows an editorial assistant at the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine at the turn of the millennium. Clodagh “Clo” Harmon is a “workhorse” surrounded by beautiful, wealthy, impossibly well-connected “show horses” who get ahead without effort. She takes ever greater and more dangerous risks to become the important person she wants to be within the confines of a world where female ambition remains cloaked. But who really is Clo underneath all the borrowed designer clothes and studied manners ― and who are we if we share her desires?

‘Carrie Soto Is Back’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Carrie Soto Is Back: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Ballantine Books

Carrie Soto’s determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. Six years later, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 U.S. Open, watching her record get taken from her.

She decides to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record — even if it means training with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.

‘The Black Kids’ by Christina Hammonds Reed

The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed.

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

In Los Angeles in 1992, Ashley Bennett and her friends — at the end of senior year — are living the charmed life. But everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a Black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, amidst the riots, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the Black kids. As her family and friendships begin to unravel, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them?

‘Wellness’ by Nathan Hill

Wellness by Nathan Hill.

Knopf

Before venturing into disillusionment, this book begins when Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty ’90s Chicago art scene — both eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene.

Fast-forward 20 years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria. The no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons and undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.

SOURCE PAGE