A Whisper of Thoughts...: Review of The Here and Now

The Here and Now

By Ann Brashares

About:

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.

Source: Goodreads

My rating: 3.3/5

My Thoughts:

**I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley**

I seem to have a knack for unintentionally picking books about time travel. The Here and Now was an unusual read about a group of people who have travelled back from the future, a future full of poverty, plague and general unhappiness. I can't quite decide whether I enjoyed it or not. The flow of dialogue is really important to me when I'm reading a book, I don't want to imagine, I want to actually be in the story. In this case, Prenna, the protagonist, was rather robotic and I can understand why, given the backstory, but still...



Prenna is one of the travellers and is trying to fit in with normal 'time natives' because that is part of the arrangement; there are 12 rules they all need to abide by and one is utmost secrecy. They can't allow anyone to know their secret and are even forbidden to speak of it amongst themselves. The problem is that one of the time natives, Ethan, saw Prenna when she first arrived from the lake two years ago and hasn't been able to stop thinking of her since and he's adamant on finding out the truth.

This was one of those sad and rather morbid reads considering it illustrates a very bleak future full of natural disasters, incredibly low survival rates and plentiful illnesses that result in everyone being afraid of any physical contact. The blood plague sounds awful and with the recent outbreak of Ebola it's scary to think what else is out there.

Poor, poor Prenna. She hates the loneliness surrounding her life and she's well aware that her community is closely watched to ensure no one breaks the rules, which wouldn't be so hard of Ethan want hell bound on breaking down Prenna's walls to help her. She's not allowed to fall in love, which undoubtedly means that she will. They had good chemistry but I didn't understand how they feel in love so quickly. I understand Prenna was lonely and Ethan was the first time native she let in but still, their 'love' wasn't the most realistic at times.

There were some format issues with the kindle copy I received via NetGalley, which I always find most irritating, but the storyline was good so it didn't bother me as much as it normally would have.


The Here and Now is the start to what sounds like a promising series, whether I end up reading it is another matter!

Zed (:

Favourite Quotes:

The gap between what we say and what we feel is so big and dark that sometimes I think I'll fall into it and just keep falling.

He once told me he calls me for the homework because I am the prettiest girl in AP Physics, which got my heart racing shamefully but doesn't mean a lot considering there are five of us in AP Physics and I am the only girl.

When you open yourself to somebody, when you feel these things that you feel, well, what do you do then? You can try to ignore it, maybe you can try to forget about it, but you can't undo it and you can't give it back.