What if the only way to live in the future is to return to the past? Ann Brashares's (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) latest novel, The Here and Now, explores that tantalizing possibility.
In 17-year-old narrator Prenna James's time, near the end of the 21st century, climate change has turned the world into an overheated, damp wasteland. Food is scarce and plague runs rampant. Prenna is chosen to be one of the Travelers, a select group immune to the plague who will travel back to 2010 and work from there to avert disaster. Though she's been warned to avoid relationships with so-called "time natives," Prenna grows dangerously close to Ethan. The 12 rules governing Prenna and her people are meant to preserve time and its "natural sequence," but Prenna begins to wonder if perhaps the only way to save the future is to break the rules designed to protect it. Ethan and Prenna, after a surprising encounter with a homeless man they call Ben Kenobi, set out to defy time and change the future--no matter the consequences. Though Prenna and Ethan's romance is a central plot point, it never overwhelms Prenna's overriding mission to save the future.
Brashares imagines a horrifying trajectory: children too terrified to go outside, governments collapsing for lack of resources, mosquitoes carrying pandemic plagues. Skillfully weaving together time travel, planetary devastation, climate change, plague and young love, the author creates an engaging, adventurous tale. --Kyla Paterno, trade book buyer and blogger, Garfield Book Company at PLU