Review: The Here and Now

Summary

Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.

This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins.

Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth.

But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves.

From Ann Brashares, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, The Here and Now is thrilling, exhilarating, haunting, and heartbreaking—and a must-read novel of the year.

Rating & Review

Contrary to what some may believe, I don't enjoy giving a book a bad rating and review. I actually hate it. Detest it. When I finish a book and it's looking like it's going to get just one star, I always go back and reread ... just looking for something, anything to grasp onto that I like. Anything that could pull a book out of the very deep grave that my mind has dug for it. But sometimes I can't change my own mind. This is one of those situations. 

I was really excited when I picked it up, the blurb on the back made me bump this puppy to the very beginning of my to-read list. But from the very first page, I had this moment of dread. It was just so ... weird. The story felt disconnected from the Ethan character. I mean, I wasn't interested in the story. Because the launch of the story was so weird, I found myself skimming immediately and then on like page 4 when it got to the part with him meeting Prenna ... WEIRD. What would a teenager honestly do if they found a naked girl in the woods and she looked like she was freaked out and had been through some sort of trauma? Would they just hand over their coat and watch her walk away? I sure as hell hope not. I hope that if my boys ever encounter this weird scenario that they would at least yell for help or go get someone or follow her or SOMETHING ... and not behave like this ...

"Oh ... hi, nekkid and muddy chick crouching in front of me ... would you like my jacket? You look totally traumatized, oh ... you want to wander off all by yourself? Cool, I'm just going to go look for my fishing rod because that's totally more important than helping to find out what is going on with you! YOLO, bitches!"

Now that obviously wasn't in the book ... it was how my mind interpreted those first few pages. The disconnect that I was talking about with Ethan happened with every single character that I encountered. There just wasn't much to them, they were very shallow  - not conceited shallow but undeveloped shallow. When I pick up a book, I want the characters to feel real and these just didn't. Then the shallowness bled over into the story. You never find out deep reasoning as to any important questions that you start to wonder about throughout the story.

I mean, this book isn't just total crap, it's grammatically correct (hey, that's a HUGE deal in my mind) and the cover is pretty. The amazing grammar and gorgeous cover seemed to be the lipstick on a very ugly pig. Unfortunately, the lipstick wasn't amazing enough to cover up the fact that the book is just ... not good. It's really sad that I'm probably going to forget about this book the moment I pick up my next read.

By no means does this mean that you shouldn't check the book out. Prove me wrong!! Love this book! It's just not for me.  

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