Review: The Future of Us

Title: The Future of Us
Author: Jay Asher
Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 Stars)
Hardcover, 356 pages
Published November 2011

"It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right - and wrong - in the present."

This book...wow. It wasn't totally five-star worthy, but I think that four stars is a pretty decent rating. The plot is something totally different than what I've read in the past, which is good--I always say that I love reading things that are different from everything else. In a society like this one, there are just no more creative, original ideas left--or so we think. The Future of Us proved me wrong on that one.

So as the description says, it's 1996 and Josh and Emma both accidentally download Facebook onto Emma's computer. Since it's 1996, they have no idea what Facebook even is--so when they find their future selves and see pictures, spouses, and status updates, you can imagine things are weird.

Josh's life looks totally awesome. He's married to the hottest girl in school and has twins. Emma's life isn't looking so great--she's stuck with a no good, cheating husband. And no matter how many times she tries to change her future, every husband she seems to get is a dud.

Now, a question for all of you: If you had a chance to peek into your future and you weren't happy with it, how far would you go to change it? Not to spoil anything for any of you, but Emma goes to some extremes. Every time her future Facebook page changes, she gets all excited--who will she be married to now? Did she drop that cheating jerk? How many kids does she have?

The story in its entirety was pretty good. The writing wasn't bad, but the ending felt a bit spotty to me. Some questions were left unanswered, which totally bugged me. (An example of that is the sentence in big, block, captial, bold letters in the next paragraph.) But in the end, I really really liked this book. As mentioned a million and one times, it has a different plot, and I LIKE DIFFERENT. WOO!

ALSO, LET'S NOT FORGET TO MENTION THE FACT THAT (*SPOILER ALERT*) KELLAN IS APPARENTLY GOING TO GET PREGNANT SOON AND THEY NEVER SAY WHAT HAPPENS TO HER WITH THAT.

Sorry, just a bit of book frustration there. Anyway, you should definitely check out The Future of Us by Jay Asher. You won't regret it!