The Future of us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Review:

One of my personal picks for this year’s 50 Book Challenge. I picked it because the idea caught me as soon as I checked it. I thought “Damn! Wish it was my idea for a plot!” and that, in writer terms, is a huge compliment thought it may not look like one.

It’s an interesting use of something that’s so close to our lives now like Facebook, to make a link with the future.

The story is written in the past, with no real time travel, but getting snippets of the probable futures through a social network in the future. Really a refreshing idea.

Usually I’m a little wary when I start a book I picked because I loved the plot idea, generally they don’t live up to my expectations. In this case, I think the story was what I expected it to be.

Josh character seems better developed and more likable than Emma, but in the end, she sounds like the teenager she is, so I can’t really blame it to the book.

Emma Nelson is an ordinary girl, at that stage of her life is likely she’d decide who to date considering the looks and not much more. I don’t think many of us could honestly say that we were so different at her age. Another thing we don’t have to forgo is the fact that she doesn't know how Facebook works, so she tends to read a little to much on everything written there. I guess most of us usually type random things on our walls that could cause a nervous breakdown to our own selves 15 years in the past if they could read them.

I felt the desire to kick Emma a few times, but that’s just personal. I wanted to tell her the problem was she was never really happy with anything in her life in her present life either, why she’d expect it to change without working on that, but then again: when I start trying to talk to characters in a book, it means the work is well done.

Highlights: The alternate POV between Emma and Josh, they’re effective to tell the story without being confusing, or retelling the moments over and over from different eyes.

The way their ‘present’ was treated, adding some nostalgia to us readers who lived during those years.

If you read it looking for more of ’13 reasons why’ you’ll probably get disappointed, because this is a whole different story. If you grew up during the ‘90s, then you’ll probably love it. Give it a chance, it’s a good story, well written without being overly mushy.