The Here and Now

by Ann Brashares

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

The Here and Now first reminded me of Lois Lowry's The Giver. We begin at a ceremony to basically scare the shit out off youngsters with extreme rules and the creation of sameness. Hm, I vaguely questioned whether Ann Brashares was jumping off the stir for The Giver movie but eventually moved on. The Here and Now is not at all like The Giver, but I'm not sure which way it should be taken.

Brashares' novel was hectic and a little discombobulated. As a time travel novel it jumped around, and not necessarily in a good way. I actually found it a little confusing and for a time questioned which realm they were in. I'm not trying to say it was a bad plot because even though the "save the world" premise has been done before The Here and Now's sense of sameness and cure/cause for the west-nile-like break out was interesting.

The big flaw, was the community. Yes they are bad but when you got into it I thought most of the community members were in the periphery and Prenna's advisers flipped in and out of the story so frequently I almost forgot they were there. Occasionally, they made an appearance to remind the reader how big, bad and scary they were but instead just made me yawn.

As for the romance between Prenna and Ethan, that was my favorite part. I usually don't fall for the cheesy teen romance and didn't for this one either. It was the outcome of the relationship that caught my eye as they usually end in a gushy kiss. This one not so much. In the world of teen romance the outcome was sad but thought it rounded out the novel.

I think a fan of the futureistic genre would enjoy The Here and Now as it had all the elements but the stars did not aline for me on this one.