Book review: The here and now by Ann Brashares

Wednesday, February 4

Hi everyone!



Title: The here and now
Author: Ann Brashares
Publisher: Delacorte Press
First Edition edition (April 8, 2014)
Hodder Childrens Books (January 1, 2015)
Review Source: NetGalley
Language: English

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.
The story begins when Ethan meets Prenna in the river. He thinks that the pretty girl covered in mud up to her ears isn't real. Finally he realizes that she is real and isn't the product of his imagination.

The rest of the book is told from the perspective of Prenna, who is giving us clues of her present time and past time. In her past life there was fear, hunger and disease, and in the present she is part of a community of people who came from the same time than hers (2098). This community must obey strictly a series of rules since they arrived on April 23, 2010.

The more I knew about that community, the more I reaffirmed my idea that it was conceived as a sect, which nobody could leave or interact with anyone outside. But in this story, that community has a very poor action in the nuance plot.

The two heroes of the story are Prenna and Ethan.  

Prenna is a young girl from a future time that doesn't remember anything of the day when she arrived, but totally she remembers her past life. As the narrator of the story, we read how she reacts to such simple things like watching the sea, the snow, some new fruits that she didn't know...

Her relationship with their community isn't very special or fluid. There is a paragraph that explains these feelings:


Meanwhile, Ethan remembers everything about Prenna, but it seems that she doesn't recognize him. He is a character more developed than Prenna. Suddenly, he knows almost every secret of Prenna and together are going to look for what must be avoided to have a future.

The story begins to get interesting when a character is showed. This character will be the key in the developing of the story. He shows them the right way to discover the important and decisive fact of the history for the future.

The best part of the story is when Prenna and Ethan begin their trip to prevent future epidemic that will end the world. In these chapters, we find out the events that led to the great deadly epidemic and the writer makes us reconsider many things about the possible future.

I gave it 3 stars because I loved the storyline about the end of the world, but the heroes didn't convince me and the ending left me some questions about the future and the relationship about Prenna and Ethan, and there isn't secuel. It's not fair :(

Other covers:



(Thanks for the ARC)

No comments :

Post a Comment