The teenage years can be a time of discovering yourself. For Josh and Emma, this normal exploration goes one step more when they find their future selves online, several years into the future.
The year is 1996, and Emma has just gotten a new computer, a guilt gift from her estranged father. When best friend Josh comes over with a AOL CD-ROM (remember AOL–America Online), their lives change. Somehow a portal opens up to Facebook, leaving the teens confusing and curious. Why are all of these people talking about what they had for dinner?
It isn’t long before Josh and Emma find their own profiles and try to figure out their future by the status updates and the photos that get posted. With more impact, they discover that the things they do in their current lives affect their future ones. Declaring that she will never attend a certain school, for example, Emma eliminates a future with friends and even a husband. Since Josh and Emma are linked. The things they do in the present affect each other in the future, and just knowing the future may be changing things as well. Meanwhile, they still have the present to deal with, including each other.
This is pretty standard fare of teenage angst and romance, but the premise is a clever one, and for anyone who remember the 90s, the references are a lot of fun from the Dave Matthews band to having to get off the Internet when someone wanted to make a phone call. The chapters flip back and forth from Emma’s perspective to Josh’s perspective, which can be interesting, although both characters tend to sound very similar in voice.
The Future of Us is a quick, fun read, but the execution does not quite live up to the promise of the premise. I had higher hopes for this novel. Contemporary teens may miss many of the 90s references and humor.
Since this is a book geared toward teens and preteens, parents may want to know that there are some sexual references in the book, although none are overt. There is the message that premarital sex is okay, as long as it doesn’t lead to pregnancy. Some kissing occurs and groups of teens head into the woods presumably for sexual activities.
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