The Here and Now

by Ann Brashares

[Leah]

I’ve never read an Ann Brashares novel, although I do have one of her books on my TBR pile (or, at least, I did, I don’t actually know if it’s still there since I cull my books on a regular basis). I know she’s an immensely popular author, and so when I spotted The Here and Now on Netgalley, I thought it sounded like a fantastic, exciting, fast-paced read. What also really made me desperate to get started on it, was after downloading it to my Kindle and loading it up, there sat a letter from Ann Brashares editor. Now, I know editors generally have to be excited about their authors books, I think it goes without saying, but I always enjoy when an editor takes the time to physically put a letter into the book saying how fantastic this novel is, and it sort of pumps me up to read a novel, but I have to be honest, and say I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought.

The novel opens with a Prologue, introducing us to Ethan, who has decided to go fishing, and whilst there, he sees a girl somehow appear out of the sky. He can hardly believe his eyes, when he sees this girl, naked and afraid and so he gives her his shirt and tells her exactly where he thinks she needs to go. Fast forward four years, to 2014, and Prenna James, and the rest of her community live their life by a set of rules. Rules that govern what they can or can’t do, and one of the rules is: They must not fall in love with a human being. Until Prenna meets Ethan, she’s very happy to stick to the rules, but there’s something about this boy that makes her want to break them. When Prenna learns that the future she knows already may very well be able to be altered, she and Ethan try to do everything they can to stop what they know is about to occur because what it goes to the world 70 years later is horrific.

I have to be honest and say that the opening chapter of The Here and Now confused me like no other book has before. It was sort of like being dropped in the middle of the ocean and nothing seemed to make sense. I think it probably could have been better set up to see Ethan witness Prenna’s arrival at the lake where he was fishing because it was bloody confusing, let me tell you. But, after that, it did begin to make more sense. There were other parts of the novel that confused me – bits that, again, more time could have been spent over making it smoother and more obvious what was happening, and I suppose this is why I probably didn’t enjoy the novel as much as I might have because I found it super confusing. It was a relatively short novel, and there was one particular twist that I didn’t even understand until Ethan pointed it out to Prenna, and that was rather indicitive of the novel, at least from my perspective.

The idea for The Here and Now was quite interesting, but I probably would have preferred to learn more about the future time than the present, because the present wasn’t as interesting (and as I said, it was confusing). It just seemed to me as if the novel was trying to cram so much stuff into one little book (it is a very short book) and it just didn’t seem to work for me. I would also have personally changed the narrative – instead of just giving us Prenna’s perspective, I would have liked to have got Ethan’s perspective, too, because there’s a lot he does and a lot we don’t get to see that could have perhaps painted a clearer picture if it was either a dual perspective or a third-person narrative. First-person is my favourite narrative, but in a novel like this it needs more scope than first-person. I liked parts of the novel, don’t get me wrong, and it wasn’t an awful read by any means, I just think it felt a little rushed. A novel that’s trying to be as big as this one in needs just a touch more time and effort to make it all make sense, and I spent the majority of the novel sitting confused, because things just seemed to be happening all the time with no room to digest anything.