Future Shock (Future Shock, #1)

by Elizabeth Briggs

What do you do when the future is too late, and the present is counting down to an inevitable moment?

Elena Martinez has street smarts, the ability for perfect recall, and a deadline: if she doesn't find a job before she turns eighteen, she'll be homeless. But then she gets an unexpected offer from Aether Corporation, the powerful Los Angeles tech giant. Along with four other recruits--Adam, Chris, Trent, and Zoe--Elena is being sent on a secret mission to bring back data from the future. All they have to do is get Aether the information they need, and the five of them will be set for life. It's an offer Elena can't refuse.

But something goes wrong when the time travelers arrive in the future. And they are forced to break the only rule they were given--not to look into their own fates. Now they have twenty-four hours to get back to the present and find a way to stop a seemingly inevitable future--and a murder--from happening. But changing the timeline has deadly consequences too. Who can Elena trust as she fights to save her life?

The first book in an unforgettable series about rewriting your destiny in the city of dreams.

• ISBN10: 0807526827
• ISBN13: 9780807526828
• Publish Date: 1 April 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Albert Whitman & Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 272
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Future Shock is fun, exciting, and diverse! Elena is approaching her eighteenth birthday, which as a foster kid means she'll soon be broke and homeless unless she can find a job. She's having no luck, but then someone from the Aether Corporation asks her to participate in a study. She figures she'll watch some videos, take some surveys, and then get some easy money. Nope. She and four other teens are being sent into the future to bring back information on technology. That is, if their minds survive the trip.

Time Travel is one of my favorite things, and I think Future Shock does it really well. It's definitely a more simple version than I've read previously, but it works. Basically, Aether Corporation created a molecule accelerator. They set it, shove something through, and it goes forward in time. Then they come back when the portal opens a set amount of time later. There is no backwards travel! That would create too many problems and just isn't possible. Maybe that's a cop-out, but it makes perfect sense to me.

Future Shock is super fast-paced and I never got a chance to get bored with it. Elena and the other teens arrive in the future, and things are not at all how they expected it. No one is there to greet them, and things are just generally completely different from the present time. Obviously this means that things aren't exactly on the up and up, and these teens aren't stupid so they try to learn what's going on and what happens to them. It's all very suspenseful and I never guessed at what was coming next!

Future Shock has a few twists and turns, so I don't want to accidentally give those away. Just know that this is a really fun and quick read. Nothing too outrageous happens, and everything felt plausible. The only thing that kind of annoyed me was that there are no chapter breaks. There's a short section set in the present, then most of it is in the future, and then a short section back in the present. Luckily I was able to read it in one sitting anyway.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.