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. Summary from Amazon I was able to make it through middle school by reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants so of course I was more than excited to read this book, but it truthfully is a disappointment to read. I'd give it 2.5 stars out of 5 because kudos for the idea, thumbs down for the execution.
The writing was very disjointed and would jump from one thing to another without finishing developing the first idea. Brashares spent a lot of time developing the future world from which Prenna came and not the present world where the story was taking place. If the novel wasn't discussing what the future is like and explaining what the plot was rather than showing, it was discussing what Prenna and Ethan were planning to do and then the two would not actually do it. Consequently, readers were not able to connect with the characters at all. This could also be due to the fact that Prenna and Ethan were flat as a piece of paper. Though they're lovable, all we see them do is solve the problem, try in vain to not fall in love, and play cards. The plot is very urgent within itself. The two have to save somebody from being murdered so the future wouldn't be so drastic. Instead of doing so, Prenna and Ethan, frolick in the ocean and play cards. Now this would've been a great time to develop their character, but it didn't happen. In their down time (of which they seemed to have a lot), Ethan would teach Prenna how to play card games since this was something she didn't learn in her training to be an early 21st century girl. I think Brashares was trying to make card games a motif and symbolic of the plot, connecting how some were tricky, others were based on luck/chance, and one needed skills to play cards, but it never connected. At the end of the novel, the reader is just left thinking, "well, that's a waste of their time." The plot and setting itself is very intricate and detail-oriented, and this would have been SUCH a terrific novel if it had just been executed better.
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