The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Time Travel/Young Adult

From Goodreads:

An unforgettable epic romantic thriller about a girl from the future who might be able to save the world . . . if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to.

Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.

This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins.

Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth.

But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves.

From Ann Brashares, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, The Here and Now is thrilling, exhilarating, haunting, and heartbreaking—and a must-read novel of the year.

If you read the letter at the beginning of The Here and Now you know that things just are not going to end as you wish.  Even without that hint the pace and the action in the book kept me on the edge of my seat.  I wanted to stop reading because I did not want to know how it turned out and I could not stop reading because I needed to know how it turned out.

The Here and Now is a tightly woven story that is full of twists and turns.  Even as everything is unfolding there are surprises.  Prenna James and Ethan Jarves carry the story and they are both great characters.  You want everything to go in their favor and much does.

However one of the things they uncover is completely unexpected.  This is a YA book but I recommend it for any age.  It would be a good discussion book for any book club. 

Delacorte Press published The Hear and Now by Ann Brashares in 2014.