You Cannot Mess This Up - by Amy Weinland Daughters (Paperback)

About the Book

"It's 2014 and Amy Daughters is a forty-six-year-old stay-at-home mom living in Dayton, Ohio. She returns to her hometown of Houston over the Thanksgiving holiday to discuss her parents' estate--and finds herself hurled back in time. Suddenly, it's 1978, and she is forced to spend thirty-six hours in her childhood home with her nuclear family, including her ten-year-old self. Over the next day and a half, she reconsiders every feeling she's ever had, discusses current events with dead people, gets overserved at a party with her parents' friends, and is treated to a lunch at the Bonanza Sirloin Pit. Besides noticing that everyone is smoking cigarettes, she's still jealous of her sister, and there is a serious lack of tampons in the house. Amy also begins to appreciate that memories are malleable, wholly dependent on who is doing the remembering. In viewing her parents has peers and her siblings as detached children, she redefines her relationships with her family members and, ultimately, realizes her life story matters and is profoundly significant--not so much to everyone else, perhaps, but certainly to her. Amy's guide said her trip back in time wouldn't change anything in the future, but by the time her thirty-six hours are up, she's convinced that she'll never be the same again."--Back cover.

Book Synopsis

Forty-six-year-old Amy Daughters flies home to Houston for Thanksgiving-and is mysteriously hurled back through time to 1978, where she's forced to visit her childhood home, including her ten-year old self, for thirty-six hours.

Review Quotes

2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner in Humor/Comedy

2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in First Novel (Over 90k Words)

2020 IPPY Awards Silver Winner in Popular Fiction

2020 Readers' Favorite Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Time Travel

2020 Eric Hoffer Awards Montaigne Medal Finalist

2019 Foreword Indie Silver Winner in Adult Fiction: Humor

"With a fine eye for detail and dialogue and from a middle child's perspective, Amy Weinland Daughters has written a funny, wrenching, insightful novel about what it's like to come home . . . and the fact that you never really can come home again."

-Kathy Hepinstall, author of The Book of Polly

"Amy's time-traveling visit to her ten-year-old self's world proves simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking-but always completely captivating. As she gains a better understanding of the family dynamics that shaped her life, she prompts readers to reflect upon our own. A truly fun, inspired, and enlightening read!"

--Sherry Stanfa-Stanley, author of Finding My Badass Self: A Year of Truths and Dares

About the Author

A native Houstonian and a 1991 graduate of The Texas Tech University, Amy W. Daughters has been a freelance writer, focusing mostly on college football, for the past decade. You Cannot Mess This Up is her first published book, meaning she can no longer claim to be "the author of unpublished books." Amy lives in Centerville, Ohio--a suburb of Dayton--where she is a regular on the ribbon dancing circuit. She is married to Willie (a computer person) and the proud mother of two sons, Will (21) and Matthew (13).