The Here and Now

This week I read The Here and Now by Ann Brashares. This was a really good book-if kind of weird. The book starts with a girl named Prenna being sent back in time. Back in the future she leaves her family; her two siblings, one of them dead, and her mom, dad, and family-friend/aunt. The mosquitoes in the future have spread a disease; Prenna's own little brother died of it. She travels to the year around 2020, and tries to reverse history. She lives in a little colony, where there are very strict rules, some of the most important being to never develop friendships with people outside the future-colony, who all come from the same place that she does; never tell anybody about the future, and certainly don't fall in love. But when Prenna comes to the past, traveling back in time, she meets Ethan, and quickly gets involved in a relationship. Prenna loves Ethan more than anything, but is under strict pressure from her colony leaders, always watching her, from breaking the rules. As Prenna Learns more about the time period, she has to come to a couple of stunning realizations-including that people might know more about the disease-ridden future that they have then they think- and comes to see that she might be able to save everyone in the future; if she's willing to give up the one thing she loves more then everything else, Ethan.

This book ROCKED! It was slightly strange with the time travel and the beginning- but you have to give her a chance everything suddenly makes sense by the end and it's so sad and amazing and really awesome. There are lots of amazing plot twists and you definitely get very strong feelings about some of the characters, whether you like them, don't, or in between. It's so sad, and I love the plotline in particular. It is slightly inappropriate but not that bad. Overall, if you want a book that you actually care about, read this book. You will be glad that you did.

PS both boys and girls, eighth, seventh, and possibly sixth graders would probably like it.