Review: The Here and Now

  
The Here and Now
Author: Ann Brashares
Publication Date: January 1st 2015        
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
 ~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

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.  

The Here and Now, I have a question for you. What are you actually about? Because there are so many threads that by the end are still left open and don’t even amount to anything.  I am confused. The characters are confused, which is why I am confused and it's a whole lot of confusion over everything. Literally. Confusion. Are you confused yet?

I usually find something nice to say, or at least some redeemable, so I’ll try and find something. It’s short? It’s readable? There, two things!

We don’t have that much background to make sense, we have time travellers, the worlds gone to crap due to global warming, overrun diseases, etc, etc, so a community travel back in time, on the account of we’ll try to change things, make it a better, not be cowards and just live our selfish lives because we have another chance. Which, you guessed it, is what they actually do. They have a bunch of rules in the community, they have a martyr, and examples of people going rogue, if anyone’s sick they treat it within their vicinity and not ours- even if it means that person will die- they monitor everywhere you go,  everything you do and say-and I mean that literally- through the glasses you have to wear. They are to have little conversation/interaction with anyone other than each other-which, you know, is a clever rule when you go to a school with a load of non-community people.

I’ll give you that one The Here and Now, considering it’s also for their health, considering you have different immunities and diseases that could infect them. Even though, you know, you’re still genetically human. You’re not aliens. Now that would’ve made more sense. And fun. I like aliens. I apparently don’t like Time Travellers. Except for a Time Lord. David Tennant, specifically. 

I could go on but it’s giving me a headache. We have little idea of how they got here and why, they don’t want anyone to know the truth (because of time rift ramifications, which, is understandable, but isn’t the fact that they’re there in the first place a time rift ramification? I mean, hello, you’re not supposed to be alive yet. And there’s no deterioration, nothing health wise that affects them, considering they’re basically time abominations.  Then there’s this scene where they try to change something, and they’re worried about something happening because they’re not supposed to be there...but again, how do you know you weren't there in the first place, that that’s how it was always supposed to go? The whole thing about time travel and everything you see/read, is that it’s a complete circle. She also buys prepaid cell phone. She calls home. She’s worried about it being traceable. Isn’t the whole point of burner phones is that there less traceable in the first place?  After the phone call, she breaks it in half. Uhm. What’s the point? Turn it off.

Should I mention the romance? I’ve been dying to mention the romance. This is a gag romance. You know the ones, the ones that make you want to vomit in your mouth a little. Here we go. Ethan finds Prenna two years previous to where the story actually begins, which she has no memory of. They go to school together. He’s fascinated with her ever since, they barely speak, they barely interact, she’s clearly throwing an off signal, but he’s still so into her. And she him.  Though you have no reason why. They just are. The first time they talk properly, they want to jump each other. The I love you’s were pretty pathetically early in, and there’s this one part, where he helps her out, and she wonders how he found out where she was, and he says he put a tracker on her. Convenient, no? Oh, and who the hell just has trackers lying around?

Basically, all I got from the romance was Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but I’m gonna track you, and kill you later.

The Here and Now is so fast paced that there’s little to nothing development in any of it, but considering the story didn't make much sense anyway...that isn't my main issue.

Rating: 2/5