Thalia @ Pictures in the Words

When this book was finally over, more than anything else, I was relieved. Relieved that I didn’t have to read it anymore, try to make sense of it anymore, try and care about the characters anymore. I was relieved it was just done and I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I put off writing this review for so long—I just didn’t want to go back and try to explain myself.

The Here and Now is one of those books that just exists and you’re not sure why. It was, unfortunately, poorly written and the characterization and explanation for plot events was awful. There was a downright terrible instalove romance between Prenna and the LUV OF HER LYFE!!!11!!, Ethan, that consumed most of the plot—including any and all parts that could have been interesting. The dialogue was bad, the characters were bad, the plot was bad, the sense was bad—everything was just bad. The whole thing did a terrible job convincing me that I was supposed to care. I didn’t hate it enough to give it only one star, but there was very little, if anything, redeeming about the story at all.

An ARC of this copy was provided by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

What I Liked: Spoilers!

• To be honest, I can’t think of any specific I really enjoyed about this novel. Part of that is my fault for not taking better notes on things I liked, but a lot of it is just that vague feeling that it wasn’t bad enough to warrant one star, but not good enough to have anything redeeming to say. I hate when that happens, because I do believe there is some good in every novel, but I just don’t remember anything specific enough to put here.

What I Didn’t Like:

• What bothered me most about this whole story were Ethan and Prenna. Their supposed relationship was entirely based on 1) Prenna’s teenage girl fantasy of what being in love is like, and 2) Ethan wanting to get into her pants. There was seriously absolutely nothing else. Ethan’s purpose was to get Prenna out of sticky situations and make remarks like, “If I could make love to you right now, I wouldn’t mind if I died,” and “there’s no reason you could give me why we shouldn’t.” Yes, he’s a regular knight in shining armor, and we’re supposed to believe that this is somehow romantic. Instead of romance, I felt creeped out by Ethan’s advances and put off by Prenna’s obnoxious thoughts and her refusal to acknowledge that there are much bigger problems going on than her love life. Your book has a serious problem if the main characters are more worried about the fact that they can’t have sex because they’ll spread a disease than changing a future in which hundreds? thousands? millions? of people die.

• On top of that, the writing itself was just bad. The present tense narration also saw to that. Near the end, there’s a part where Prenna says, “She holds me like she hasn’t since I was a baby. Since maybe ever. I feel like a baby, and I just want to rest. I feel like her baby.” Okay…well, thank you for that. And if the cliché of present tense writing was all over the place—lack of contractions in narration. Prenna says things like, “I will take care of it…I will make sure.” Human beings just don’t talk that way—I don’t think we lost contractions in ninety years of time (the same way I don’t think we lost the “th” sound or the ability to make clothes). And the icing on the cake? Prenna says, “Everything that happens after that is my fault,” indicating that the events have already happened—in a present tense narration. I think that’s the part where I wanted to rage quit the book (my note about it is written in all caps).

• I won’t even attempt to talk about the world and the ridiculousness of the plot and world building. None of it really made any sense. Prenna least of all makes sense. She was a depthless, emotionless character. Right off the bat we’re told that Prenna was only allowed to go to the past because of her “enhanced IQ”, which automatically triggered an eye roll from me. Every time I’m told a character is especially smart or witty or talented, they seem to prove themselves exactly the opposite. Prenna makes stupid decisions all the time, and there is nothing about her that denotes she has an enhanced IQ of any kind.

Overall: My recommendation for this book is one word: don’t. Don’t bother. Don’t waste your time. Just don’t. This is my first encounter with Brashares, but I’m assuming she’s usually a good writer since the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series was so overwhelmingly successful. I never read it, and this book makes me never want to. It was pointless of almost every level, and I really would prefer to just forget that I read it and move on.

(http://thaliasbooks.tumblr.com/post/105819930502/the-here-and-now-review)