The Future of Us

The power and popularity of social networking seems so common place to us now. It is hard to image life without tweets and status updates.The Future of Us takes the reader back to 1996 where facebooks where actual books college freshmen received, where AOL was new and sometimes a little unknown. 

This book brought back a lot of memories of high school and the first time my friends and I signed on to AOL and heard that familiar ding and "You got mail." The characters in The Future of Us are relatable and real. Characters I would have been friends with in high school. Emma and Josh are easy to relate to whether you grew up in the 1990s or 2010s. My students have even commented that they didn't want to finish the book , they didn't want to say goodbye.

Besides the great characters, The Future of Us brings a new twist to time travel and changing the future. What would you do if you could figure out how every single action you did today, affect your future for better or worse. If you could control your future, would you? What if it meant losing your best friend? Or feeling like you have no way to control your happiness?

Great addition to anyone's library for a fun read. My students have been raving about the book for months!

I was very intrigued with the premise of two teens in 1996 coming across their future via Facebook. I mean, who wouldn't be curious to know what happens to them in the future? A fun twist on the time travel idea similar to a reverse 13 going on 30.

I really wanted to love this book and at the beginning I was pulled in with the characters stumbling across something that hadn't even been invented yet. Josh and Emma are likeable enough but I didn't feel much chemistry between them. It was totally believable on their reactions to finding out about themselves and even their attempts to 'change' the future. I did find some of the pop references off, which did take me out of the story a few times. What did pull me back in was the snowball effect of Josh and Emma in either trying to accept their so-called destiny or trying to change it. I really liked how Emma decides to take matters into her own hands even when the outcome might not turn out the way she'd hoped.

An interesting read with a big twist on the whole 'What if' scenario.

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.