Book Review: The Here and Now

Book: The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available Now

Description:

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.



Rating: 1 star

Review:

I was really excited to read this but this wasn't very good. I had hoped it would be so much better than this. Both the characters and the story are rather forgettable.

This was really disappointing because I figured the story would at least provide details about why the people from the future were here other than the bare minimum that's already in the story.

The people from the future (there are a little over a 1,000) live in a sort of compound or isolated community yet still try to fit into our society. They live by 12 strict rules so they will not be discovered. One of the rules is for the people of the community to not fall in love with someone outside of the community, and of course that's what happens with Preena and Ethan. Cue the insta-love.

There's some convoluted plot that had Preena along with Ethan trying to save the world after getting info from a reclusive homeless guy who Preena may or may not have known (even she wasn't sure). But before they do that they decide to do absolutely nothing except perhaps go to the beach and do a few other time wasters. I guess saving the world really wasn't a high priority for those two.

What was really disappointing was there was a whole lot of nothing going on in this story. And when things do start to happen, they don't make any sense. Absolutely no sense at all.

The main character Preena does not have a personality and her supposed high intelligence wasn't shown at all. She constantly does stupid stuff. And the other main character Ethan is nothing more than a plot device. His only purpose in this story is to bail out Preena no matter what the situation is. He's there to be whatever the story needs him to be: the love interest, Preena's world saving partner and a computer hacker.

I commend authors for trying new things (the author wrote the highly successful Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series) but sometimes they don't work out and this one really didn't work out. I really wish this book had been better but this was a poorly executed story about time travel that got worse as the story progressed.