The Here and Now (2014) (Hodder Children's Books)Ann Brashares
Grade: C+
Genre: young adult / time travel
Source: own / NetGalley
General RBC 2015: A book set in the future
Follow the rules. Remember what
happened. Never fall in love.
These are the most important
rules of Prenna’s community – the rules that she knows she must abide by if
they’re to blend in and appear normal. Ethan is the first and only person who
makes Prenna want to risk revealing her community’s secret: that they’re from
another time … In the future, a mosquito-borne disease is rapidly killing huge swathes
of humanity. The early twenty-first century is identified as a ‘safe haven’
where those who have managed to avoid the disease can start over. But the
restrictive rules about never revealing where they’re from, never dramatically changing
the course of history and never being intimate with someone from outside their
community are put to the test as Prenna and Ethan are drawn into a course of
events that has the potential to destroy the world – and history – as they know
it …
I’m more than happy to admit that
the sole reason I wanted to read this is because it was written by the mighty
Ann Brashares. I worshipped The
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series (I’m only counting books 1-4
here) as a teenager and that’s still the case more than ten years on. Every so
often, I’ll have an urge to pick up one of the books and flick through to find
my favourite scenes (Bee was always my favourite character). Post-Sisterhood, I’ve definitely tried to see
whether Ann Brashares can replicate her writing magic in other books and series.
She’s a fantastic writer and I have enjoyed her standalones since, but I’m not
sure that the magic of the sisterhood can ever be replicated.
I said in my review of A Knight in Shining Armor that I hadn’t
had very much experience with time travel. I had completely forgotten that The Here and Now is a time travel novel,
as well as Ms Brashares previous standalone novel, My Name is Memory (2010) – amazing book, by the way. Clearly, I
have a tendency to forget the element of time travel as an integral part of the
book afterwards. This is probably more of a deficiency on my part than the
writer’s, but it has made me think about my attitude towards it. I have
absolutely no trouble with accepting time travel as a concept or plot device,
whether it’s in books, TV or film, however outlandish it might seem in real
life. In fact, it looks like I’m so accepting of time travel that I sometimes
forget about it altogether – even when I’m reading the book itself. Perhaps that’s
an indication of great writing: that the author has managed to integrate time
travel so completely and seamlessly that it doesn’t come across as an alien idea.
I would never go as far to say that I love time travel books and make a special
effort to read them, but I’ve made it my mission to finally finish Diana
Gabaldon’s Outlander this year!
I found it hard to get into this
and connect with the characters. There was a detached-ness about the writing
that I’d never experienced in The
Sisterhood that made it really hard to care for the characters and persist
with reading this book. Sure, it was good at times, but out of the time travel
books that I have read, it’s probably made the biggest deal of highlighting the
differences between the two different worlds – losing the seamlessness that I mentioned
above. Further, the ending killed me in that Prenna and Ethan deserved so much
more – you’ll have to read it to find out what I mean. In terms of time travel
books, My Name is Memory was
definitely more gut-wrenching and heartfelt in this respect. In that book, there
were times when I just wanted to weep for some characters and strangle others –
that’s what I love about Ann Brashares; unfortunately, she didn’t evoke the
same emotions in me with THaN.
I wanted to like this, but it
seems that it wasn’t meant to be. The
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants was just one of many series of books
that played an integral part of my childhood and early teenage years. To be
fair to Ann Brashares, I doubt that anything written by these authors (mainly also
Meg Cabot and Tamora Pierce) now could hold a candle to the books I read in
those formative years. I’m not even sure that I would have the same reaction
and emotional investment in those books if I read them today for the first time,
but I think that’s part of the process of growing up with a particular set of
authors, books, series, characters or genres. I’ll happily state that Ann
Brashares has moved away from The
Sisterhood well and shown that she can write other genres, but if you’re looking
for a read similar to the adventures you experienced with Bee, Carmen, Tibby
and Lena, then you’re in for disappointment.
Image courtesy of Fantastic Fiction.
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