ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Retro by Jessica M. Goldstein

Retro by Jessica M. Goldstein is published by Penguin Michael Joseph and is available now. I bought my own copy. It’s billed as being for fans of Yesteryear (by Caro Claire Burke) and Fleabag. Even though I haven’t read Yesteryear yet, I do love Fleabag (especially series 2 with the hot priest!) and I can see where the comparisons have come from.

EVER WANTED TO TRAVEL INTO THE PAST? WELL NOW YOU CAN!*

*exclusions and exorbitant fees apply.

Ash is a failed actress who is done trying to ‘make’ something of her life when she scrolls past an ad for Retro. The algorithm thinks she can afford recreational time travel? Then she sees the caption: Come away with us! We’re hiring.

Time Travel Agents, the guides who lead ultra-wealthy explorers on trips to the past on the ‘Retro Metro’, must blend seamlessly into any historical period. Ash is a perfect fit. She’s an actress after all. Or at least she used to be.

So begins Ash’s life at Retro, chaperoning rich tourists through history’s most Instagrammable eras. She wrangles bachelorette parties chasing hunky cowboys in the Old West, throws ‘’20s for your twenties’ birthday bashes at speakeasies, and rolls her eyes at Wall Street men trying their luck in the Gold Rush.

For the first time in years, Ash’s life feels enviable. She barely notices the strange glitches in her memory or the way her present-day relationships are starting to slip.

But as the trips intensify and her present begins to fray, Ash confronts an unsettling question: Was diving into the past ever really an escape, or just another way to lose herself?

The Retro of the title is a company founded and ruled by Ro Temple, a powerful man and a pioneering one. Ash is a failed actress, one who started with much ambition and promise which slowly trickled away to nothing after letdown upon letdown. It doesn’t help that her best friend, Pebbles, is on the rise, starring in hit after hit. When Ash is fired from her deadbeat office admin job, an ad for Retro piques her interest. Retro is looking for agents to accompany their trips into the past, the trips being sight-seeing expeditions for rich folk in the present, giving them experiences they could never have dreamt of such as visiting the Old West, or Woodstock.

At first, Ash loves her new job. It’s all-encompassing with agents having no real life outside of Retro. It gives her the boost she needs and for the first time in ages she feels like she fits in, like she’s living the good life that she should have had, amidst the close-knit feeling of a family that Retro presents. Soon, however, malfunctions start to occur and Ash’s memories become corroded. This is where things really started to hot up for me and what I realised the whole story had been leading to.

I love time travel stories and so I was keen to give Retro a go. Reviews have been mixed but I thought it was a brilliant read. At first it’s just exciting watching Ash and her colleagues travel into past worlds with no real consequences. It’s a thrilling concept, the idea of being able to drop into the past, stay there for a short while and then return to everything you know in the present. I was enjoying all this and wondering what was going to happen next when things took a rather more sinister turn and then I couldn’t put the book down. I’m not sure what to make of the ending though. As I realised I was about to turn onto the last page I said ‘no’ aloud and then when I did turn the last page I said ‘noooooooo’ rather louder. I would have liked a different ending but at the same time I’m left wondering about the possibilities for Ash beyond the final page.

Either way, I really really enjoyed Retro. I thought it was innovative and intelligent, witty and fun, thought-provoking and ultimately intriguing.

Jessica M. Goldstein is a journalist and humorist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vulture, Marie Claire, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and more. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she was born and raised New Jersey and currently lives in Washington, D.C. Retro is her debut novel.