(Gr 7+)
Coming 21 November 2011
Razorbill. Review copy provided by publisher.
"It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet.
Emma just got her first computer and an America Online CD-ROM.
Josh is her best friend. They power up and log on--and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in the future.
Everybody wonders what their Destiny will be. Josh and Emma are about to find out."
The premise of this story is really interesting. As I was reading the book, I found myself wanting to look at my own facebook profile and try to see it through the eyes of my sixteen year old self. Would I like the way I looked? Would I like my job? Would I be happy with my husband (of course, he's adorable)? If you were a teenager and had a brief glance at what your future would be like in fifteen years, how much would you want to change? Obviously, a facebook profile can't give all the details of a future life. Even people who put the most personal details online don't put everything on, so can you really judge your future on only what you find on a social networking site?
I like stories about time travel, any kind of time travel really. I like it if the character manages to physically travel through time, gets secret messages from their future self, or, as it turns out, finds a future website. The story raised some great points about changing the future. Emma starts out right away thinking about how she can make her future life different than it is, better. Josh on the other hand, is worried about what his new knowledge might mean for the present and how it could screw up his future. For example, "This is making me nervous. The future seems so fragile. For instance, I already saw that I'm going to the University of Washington like my brother. And I definitely want that to happen, but what if knowing I'll get in makes me slack on the application and then I get rejected?" (ARC 134-135). Yup, mind blown! What if just knowing the future changes your actions in the present and, therefore, changes the future!? I think I need a cup of tea.
Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler are a little bit of an author dream team. Together they created a compulsively readable book that I could not put down. Literally. I read the entire thing in just over 2 hours. Emma and Josh are sweet, fun, interesting characters who I would definitely want to be friends with. Their story is a perfect mix of obsessing over their future and trying to figure out their present. Each of them faces different dilemmas from their new knowledge - do they keep secrets or help friends? Their story will suck you in and you won't be able to stop until the very end, so I recommend starting this book in a very comfy chair. Then ask yourself, how much would you want to know about your future?
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