My love for Jay Asher’s writing began when I first finished Thirteen Reasons Why, a phenomenal novel on so many levels. I was completely unaware that he’d written this with Carolyn Mackler until, behold, I walked into a library and borrowed it. Needless to say I was expecting the best, and got… high-level mediocre.
In the golden year that is 1996, Josh and Emma have been friends their whole life. Until recently, when things got… awkward between them. But then Josh’s family gets a free AOL CD in the post, and his mum makes him invite her over to install it on her new computer. They sign on, but when they sign on, they’re automatically logged into their Facebook pages, from 15 years in the future. With every refresh they see a new update from the future, and what they do now affects it. This is the story of how they learned what they do today always affects the tomorrow.
Whilst the book has a relatively simple concept, I found it interesting to see Asher and Mackler’s perspective on it. The idea that what you do now affects what you do in the future is one that seems like common sense (and is a scientific theory as well) to most people, but actually, The Future Of Us explains it in a tangible way that social media nuts like me can understand.
And to think, there was a time where Facebook didn’t exist? The internet wasn’t a thing?! Mind blown.
That’s the other thing I like about The Future Of Us. Though it’s still a fairly recent novel, it’s taking people like me back into the past and I’ve seen a completely different world to the one I know, where my near on 70 year old grandmother knows what Facebook is, to a world where no one knows what Facebook is. Chances are Mark Zuckerburg didn’t know what Facebook was. It’s not really historical fiction, but the element of it that’s there has been perfectly executed. I was a big fan of that.
However, and this may come as a slight shock, I found the plot to be way too over the place. Imagine for a second a line, and this line starts off nice and straight, and then starts to go jagged. By the end, you might as well have a polygon where it’s that jagged. That is this book’s plot-line. (I want to be able to say I spent ages on that, but I really didn’t. Sorry.)
I was also concerned with the lack of attention to how the characters were portrayed. I know very little about Josh, or Emma, or any character. Other than the fact that Josh isn’t on good terms with Emma originally, and Josh is a skater. That’s it. I often moan about the lack of detail towards characters and it gets on my nerves too, but I would have liked to know way more about Josh, and Emma, and everyone.
I get it and all about this book, but it was also very American set, what with its American shop references, the fact it’s completely centred on AOL (which, by the way, no longer exists here in the UK as a broadband company, since it got bought by TalkTalk) and its many other references and even, to an extent, the character’s mannerisms.
It’s an enjoyable read, but I don’t expect it to hit the favourites lists any time soon I’m afraid. Sorry Jay and Carolyn, just wasn’t for me.
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
