Title: The Here and Now
Author: Ann Brashares
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA Time Travel
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Release Date: April 8th 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Source: eARC received from publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

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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.


I will preface this review by saying that I have not liked a book that Ann Brashares has written since the end of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. I loved those books so much that I thought I would love anything that she would write, but over the years I have discovered that I don't like her style of writing as much as I used to, and I am sad to say that The Here And Now did not change that statement.

I will say that the beginning of this book had me hooked, i liked the main character because she was a great narrator and a great person to introduce us to her world. I am a huge fan of time travel, and the fact that she is from the future made me very curious on what would happen. I liked that there were consequences to breaking the rules and that there was a society connected to their time travel. I liked all of these things, and I am sad to sad that those were where my likes ended.

There is a love story in this book, and usually I am all for those, but to me this seemed extremely rushed, and I honestly didn't believe it at first. To me it made no sense why this boy was obsessed about this girl because they had never really talked. I also found that the boy himself was a useless character until he was needed. For example, the MC was kidnapped and it just so happens that he put a tracker on her and knew how to break into a house?? how is that possible when we had no inkling of these skills before hand. I felt like he was a plot device and was used mostly to advance the plot and nothing more.

I also felt that the world building fell apart completely by the middle of the book, nothing was really explained and there were no consequences to her action at all. One of the rules was you cannot have a romantic relationship with someone from the now, and she did, but nothing happened.  I also had a huge problem with the end. It was way too easy in my opinion. How can this one girl take on a whole organization with just her words and no actual action? I felt cheated and I wanted more of a fight.