How does the author use allusion in the novel, This Time Tomorrow?

Straub includes countless allusions to 90s pop-culture icons to make the setting of New York City, 1996 feel realistic. When Alice wakes up as a sixteen-year-old, she is most struck by the posters that litter her walls: “It looked like psychotic wallpaper—here was Courtney Love kissing Kurt Cobain’s cheek on the cover of Sassy, here was James Dean sitting on a tractor, here was shirtless Morrissey, here was shirtless Keanu Reeves, here was shirtless Drew Barrymore, her hands covering her breasts and daisies in her hair” (69). Alice’s posters also reflect her youth as she idolizes attractive actors and musicians to an almost “psychotic” degree (69). This word captures Alice’s own surprise at her former, star-crazed self and reflects the drastic change in values which age brought upon her.