Review Detail

It’s 1996 and Emma and Josh are both high school juniors. They live next door to each other and have been best friends until six months ago when Josh misread the signs and kissed Emma. Since then things have been sort of uncomfortable. Emma’s father, divorced and living with his second wife, gets Emma a computer and Josh, being the nice guy he is, brings her an AOL disk that she can load and connect to the internet through her telephone line. After loading, she hears “Welcome” in that AOL voice and, all of the sudden, the program changes to Facebook, a social networking site that didn’t exist in 1996.

Emma immediately calls Josh and they start navigating the site, understanding what it actually means. Josh finds out that in 2011 he’s married to Sydney Mills, one of the hottest girls in school. Josh, however, is not one of the hottest guys in school. How did they end up together? Emma sees that she’s married to Jordan Jones, someone she doesn’t know in 1996 and she’s not happy. As the status updates change, Josh and Emma realize that every little action taken in their 1996 lives will have a ripple effect and change their 2011 lives. Emma wants to change out of her bad marriage. Josh doesn’t want any changes. He’s got his dream girl…or does he?

In The Future of Us Carolyn Mackler, author of the Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things, among other fun YA novels and Jay Asher, author of the still popular Thirteen Reasons Why have created a new romantic twist. The collaboration results in a cute, fun read about what’s important now and how every little thing you do can impact the future. Emma and Josh are great characters as are their friends Tyson and Kellan. The storyline is fun and makes you think. What would you do if you knew the future and didn’t like it…or did like it and didn’t want it to change? Do you even want to know the future? The Future of Us takes place during one May week. As such, it’s a good summer read. So, snatch up your copy now and be ready for the summer…or read it now and read it again during the summer.