Published - 5th January 2012
Publisher - Simon & Schuster
Format -Paperback
Synopsis -
It's 1996 and very few
high school students have ever used the internet. Facebook will not be
invented until several years in the future. Emma just got a computer and
an America Online CD. She and her best friend Josh power it up and log
on - and discover themselves on Facebook in 2011. Everybody wonders what
they'll be like fifteen years in the future. Josh and Emma are about to
find out.
Not too long ago I read Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and it really impressed me! So when I saw this for £1 in a local bookstore I had to have it and I read it pretty much immediately. I was born at the end of the 80's so I grew up without the internet and I remember it's impact as it started filtering into our every day lives and in peoples homes rather than at school. My first internet provider was also AOL and so this was right up my street.
The idea of not just being able to get glimpses of your future but through Facebook is terrifying and insane. I wonder what my past self would have thought if I could see the Facebook status's I post about my life now. I probably would have given up all hope! That's the beauty of this book, and it's really moralistic. Context is everything. Sure, if all I saw of my future was how I have baby food in my hair and no social life to speak of, i'd probably want to do everything I could to make my future a little bit more pleasing but in reality - I probably was happy about that.
The Future of Us had so much potential that I scrambled to the end to get the satisfied feeling I was craving from this book. It just...sort of didn't happen. I did enjoy it! It was a fun, quick read but I felt like it really missed an opportunity to do something amazing. Instead, The Future of Us focuses on the petty romance/friendship between Josh and Emma and perhaps more infuriating - Emma's obsession with having a good husband. Somebody should inform the writers that a girl does not equate her lifetime happiness with whether she has a decent husband to make her happy. I thought that perhaps Emma would see the error of her ways and realise that she doesn't NEED that man to have a happy future - but she doesn't. The teens do learn valuable lessons of course - live for the moment and see what the future brings. It was just disappointing that both in the present and the future, these two kids are preoccupied with being in love. I'm not sure if it's a book I would really recommend to people unless they specifically wanted something like this but it was cheap and passed a couple of hours so it wasn't too bad.
Published - 4th February 2008
Publisher - Bloomsbury
Format - Paperback
Synopsis -
Jessica Allendon is
bored and Googles her name. Weirdly, she finds another girl, same age,
same name, also living in London. They arrange to meet. At the
designated time and place, Jess sees the girl, shock registering on both
their faces as they realise they look identical. They shake hands and
in that instant are catapulted into each other's worlds. Jessica finds
herself somewhere which looks like the London of 50 years ago, but the
year is still 2008. In this parallel London, the history is different,
key war memorials are missing, and the Jessica whose life she now
inhabits was involved in a dark and sinister conspiracy. Jess must
convince everyone she is the same girl, at all costs, if she wants to
get back to her London - alive.
Last year Brianna was working at a bookstore and so I sent her off one day with the request that she returns with 3 completely random books for me to read. This was one of them that she picked up and though it's taken me forever to actually read it, it was a good choice. The cover is so beautiful and the text and picture are slightly raised and argh just so so gorgeous. It feels a little steampunky too which is always good.
Shadow Web is set in 2008 and when Jessica Allendon googles her own name, everything changes except the year. It's a great concept, especially as so many people DO google their names and I guess in that respect it's relateable. I've always wondered if there's someone out there who shares my name (which isn't realistic I guess, my name is pretty odd!) Browne is also a new-to-me author and that's always great too.
Strangely, I didn't find the MC very likeable and though she changes through the course of the book, I still didn't feel any kind of connection to her. However, there are other characters in the book that I really loved and their whole personas were brilliantly written. The London that Jess finds herself in is vastly different to the one that she (and we) know. Landmarks are missing, restrictions for women are in place and an abnormal amount of people are German speakers. It doesn't take much to figure out why the world is so different but the intrigue for me was how it happened in the first place. How the two Jessicas managed to swap places. Unfortunately that was the only downfall of the book, too. Though it is commented on, it's never really explained in depth and I would have loved to have known more about it. A few times in the book Jessica just glazes over things rather than explain them.
The actual plot was great though and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I went into the book blind and came out having a great reading experience. The romance in the book isn't in your face and it develops at a good enough pace and it most definitely isn't the focus of the book, or even relevant to the plot at all. Just a nice little extra. Shadow Web adds a lot of mystery, intrigue and questions throughout the plot which kept me interested. There are a couple of good lines that comment on society but nothing so big that it feels like you're reading a great masterpiece. It's a great book and is super quick to read and doesn't really require any effort on behalf of the reader. A straightforward and enjoyable read!
