When four friends find themselves thrown back in time to 1985, how will they handle being teens in their parents' era? And will they ever get back to the future? It takes Shannon a while to work out what's happened. She went into the cinema in 2025 and came back out ... in 1985? Somehow she's travelled forty years back in time. But this isn't the first time something strange has happened to Shannon and her group of friends. Is there a chance that whatever mysterious forces brought them together a year ago have sent them back to the 80s with her? To find her friends, she'll have to navigate a world with no smartphones, no internet, and - worst of all - no access to bubble tea. Plus, what's with the hairstyles? Once they're reunited, things only get more complicated. As the group tries to find a way back to the future, some friendships are strained while others blossom into something more. Can they stay together - and stay friends - long enough to survive 1985? In another warm, wise and life-affirming story, Tegan Bennett Daylight takes her beloved cast of characters from her debut YA novel Royals on a fresh adventure, to discover something about their roots and how far their generation has come.
Reviews
HOW TO SURVIVE 1985 – Tegan Bennett Daylight (Simon & Schuster) The Age 10/5/2025Tegan Bennett Daylight's new novel imagines the most terrifying thing that could happen to today's teenagers. Forget zombies or flesh-eating viruses. It's being transported back to the 1980s, an unthinkable time before the internet, social media, mobile phones or bubble tea existed. How to Survive 1985 features the characters from Daylight's YA debut Royals (but can be read as a standalone), who find themselves inexplicably back in the past. Protagonist Shannon comes out of a cinema in Newtown to discover she has emerged into a world of big hair, boxy cars, smoking and leashless dogs whose owners don't pick up their poo. In a classic '80s trope, she tracks down her then 16-year-old mum, who helps her find her other friends who have also time-travelled. As they try to find a way back to the 21st century, the fun, witty adventure touches subtly on the changes between the 1980s and now, from attitudes to gender equality, race, identity, climate change and even food and body image.
