Wednesday, March 19, 2014

REVIEW: The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

The Here and Now
An unforgettable epic romantic thriller about a girl from the future who might be able to save the world . . . if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to.
Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.
This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. 
Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth. 
But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves. 
From Ann Brashares, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, The Here and Now is thrilling, exhilarating, haunting, and heartbreaking—and a must-read novel of the year.
               Goodreads


THE RUN-DOWN 
Around the year 2090, the world is within a plague outbreak, killing millions. Prenna, along with almost a thousand others, are sent back to the year 2010, so they can live without the death of their future and possibly stop the plague from ever starting. But The Community, as they are called, has a set of 12 rules that the thousand time travels must follow in order to "protect" them from those in the present day world.

 It is now the year 2014 and The Community is keeping their eye on Prenna, who may be breaking the rules by associating with a present day person. But Prenna will find out what is really going on within The Community.

MY OPINION 
There was two misconceptions I had about this book:
1. I assumed this was a contemporary when I first saw it.
The cover seems like a cover for a contemporary book and the author is known for writing contemporary books, so I thought it was contemporary.
2. I thought it would be based on forbidden love.
When I got around to reading the synopsis, I not only figured out that this was not a contemporary book, but I also saw that this book would have forbidden romance in it. I was happy to find out that this is a time travel book, which is one of my favorite book topics. I was also happy to find out that this book was not all about forbidden romance, something that I have been getting sick of lately in books.

 I was really interested in the idea behind this book. Someone coming from a desolate future to the present in order to save their own future? Heck yes! Sadly, I was disappointed by this book. This idea was shown in the book often, but the execution of this idea failed.

  World-Building: The world-building was the main reason. Everything in this book was rushed, it was as if an entire series was crammed in one book. Since the book was rushed, there wasn't a lot of time for world-building, which left me with a lot of answered questions. Why were they chosen to travel? How exactly did they travel? And the list goes on.

  Characters: With the story being rushed, we also didn't get a lot of time to know the characters, leaving us with a bunch of cardboard characters. Ethan is just the cardboard boyfriend, he doesn't even seem to have any other purpose than to be there. There's a girl named Katherine who is Prenna's best friend but she doesn't serve any purpose to the story at all, in fact, she's hardly in it. Almost every character is a cardboard character, even Prenna is a cardboard character (the idiot with a high IQ. Seriously, she makes so many dumb decisions yet she has a high IQ? In what world does this make sense?).

 IN CONCLUSION 
I was really hoping to like this book.
It would have been an interesting take on time-travel if only the story was not rushed. If we had more world-building and more personality to the characters, I would have been able to enjoy this book much more.

I hereby give this book
2.5 Wheels
Meaning: It was okay and I was close to liking it, but something prevented that from happening.



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