The world may end. We're at the pivot point that will determine the future of humanity. This moment in time will doom us or save us. All we have to do is prevent one murder from happening, and we can save millions of lives...
But all Prenna and Ethan can think about is whether or not they should have sex.
Ethan is a freaking horny bastard. He may die by having sex with Prenna, or contract some creepy futuristic virus.. but he doesn't care! He's still determined to get into Prenna's pants. That's all this guy thinks about.
"If I could make love to you right now, I wouldn't mind if I died."
—Ethan
"Bit by bit I feel [Ethan's] hands searching around my body, pushing up under my tank top."
And when Prenna asks Ethan what he'd want to do if he knew he was going to die, he replies:
"Are you sure you want me to tell you the truth?"
I nod, pressing my lips together.
He seems to gauge my tolerance for sincerity.
"Okay, well, since you insist. If I were going to die, there would be nothing to keep me from you—from all of you, from everything with you—and there's no reason you could give me why we shouldn't."
In case the lack of context isn't clear for you.. he's talking about sex. He's saying that if he knew he were going to die, the one thing he'd want to do is have sex with Prenna, and nothing could stop him. Sounds a bit rapey, don't you think?
Prenna's main argument for not wanting to have sex with him was a sound one. She's from the future. She may be carrying all kinds of diseases that may not affect someone from her time, but may have devastating consequences for someone from present day. Think like some kind of futuristic AIDS, which Prenna is immune to but Ethan wouldn't be, and is sexually transmitted. And yet, Ethan is like, "I'm not afraid. It won't hurt me." Is that what you say when you try to convince someone to have sex without a condom? "Honey, it's fine. You won't get chlamydia because we're meant to be together."
Okay, let's talk about the actual book, shall we?
I almost didn't finish The Here and Now. The beginning was so dull and insta-lovey right off the bat. Immediately she was all ga-ga for Ethan, but I didn't care about him at all. He was pretty bland, and I felt like I knew nothing about him, but Prenna was obsessed with him.
At around the 50% mark, I did start to get more interested to the point where I didn't want to constantly put the book down.. but it was still pretty ridiculous. Prenna got herself caught by making REALLY FREAKING STUPID decisions. Then in the second half, there's this big overarching feeling of "we need to save the world", but instead of doing that, she and Ethan check into a hotel, sit by the beach, eat hamburgers like 5 times, and go shopping. Oh, and talk about whether or not they should have sex... obviously. I mean, PRIORITIES GUYZ!
Then the book ended with a bit more ridiculousness. Ethan still wanted to have sex with Prenna, even after they realized that SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IS WHAT CAUSED THE VIRUS IN THE FIRST PLACE! God. Oh, and Prenna, a seventeen-year-old, got voted in as a leader of their little time traveler group. Naturally.
Ultimately, I was just left with a feeling of "meh". I never cared much about the story or any of the characters. My favourite part was hearing about what the future was like, and some of the time traveling aspects were pretty cool. But most of the time I was just bored, and floored by how badly Ethan wanted to have sex.