The Here And Now by Ann Brashares

Ethan first saw the girl on April 23, 2010 when he was fishing. The air over the river seemed to change, to shimmer and quiver. Ethan was sucked into what seemed like a vortex and then thrown to the ground. After this was over, a girl, his own age was standing naked, wet and shivering on the river bank. She has what appeared to be a bruise but was in fact a number, 51714. Ethan offered her his sweatshirt and she walked away towards the bridge.

For the next two and half years Ethan thought he imagined what happened. "Until the first day of his sophomore year when the very same girl walked into his precalculus class and sat down one seat behind him."

Prenna James along with a thousand other people arrived on April 23, 2010 from the future - the year 2098. On the fourth anniversary of their arrival, April 23, 2014, sixteen-year-old Prenna is in a church, with the rest of her community, reciting the twelve rules they have had to learn and that are critical to their survival. Their community consists of nine leaders who make policy and twelve counselors who pass on those policies. They are refugees from future filled with blood plague - dengue fever that was spread by mosquitoes and which has decimated the world.

Prenna came here with her mother, both of them immune to the blood plague. Her father did not time travel with them, refusing at the last minute. Prenna's two younger brothers died in the third dengue fever epidemic, known as the blood plague, the year before she time-travelled back to 2010. In this new time, Prenna is amazed by the lushness of the world around her with the variety of animals and birds.

After the ceremony Prenna and her friends, Katherine, Jeffrey Boland, Juliet Kerr, and Dexter Harvey get together in Central Park where they relax. Prenna feels alone and isolated. No one ever talks about life in Postremo or how they came to be here, what really connects them together. Instead Prenna feels more like an actor in a large stage production. "'Sometimes I only hear what we don't say. I only think the things I shouldn't think and I remember what I should forget. I hear the ghosts in this room, all the people we lost in our old life who are crying out to be remembered. But we never do remember them. The whispers of things we feel and don't say -- I hear them too...I want to feel something. I really do. But it's only the absence I feel, just the wishing and wanting where there is nothing. I just feel lonely."

When she dances with one of the boys from her own time she thinks of Ethan Jarves. Prenna knows that Ethan suspects there is something not right about her. He has this expectant look like they have met before. Prenna suffered amnesia and does not remember the time immediately before or after her time travel meaning that she likely does not remember her brief encounter with Ethan in 2010.

One day after a false bomb scare at her school, Ethan tells her that the homeless person he knows, affectionately dubbed Ben Kenobi, wants to meet her. Ben tells her that soon there will be a "moment in time when the entire path of the future shifts" and that she may need to act. He doesn't know all the details but he knows when it will happen. He tells her there is a murder about to take place this year, on May 17, 2014 and that this one event will change the course of history and create the future that she comes from - a future in which the planet is dying and its inhabitants are succumbing to a horrible plague for which there is no cure. The man who commits the murder told Ben about it before he died but in 2014 he is still alive and planning to murder. At the time of his death, he knew what he had done, the harm that resulted and he asked Ben to prevent him from doing it. Ben tells Prenna that her people say they are here to do something to help the future be better, to prevent the plagues but in fact they are doing nothing. They are hiding here, in this time, enjoying the life they have here. Prenna now understands the significance of the number that was written on her arm when she arrived in 2010.

Prenna believes that the glasses she wears record all her conversations but they must wear them since without them their vision is poor. Since Ben removed her glasses during their conversation, the counselors have no idea what they spoke about. Mr. Robert meets with her the next day to find out waht they spoke about and to warn her away from him. Prenna tells her friend Katherine about meeting the homeless man and then Ethan tells her the strange experience he had when he was thirteen and fishing by the river. Both of these events result in another visit and warning from Mr. Robert but also the removal of her friend Katherine.

Prenna receives a phone call from Ben telling her that he traveled through the time path, twenty-four years after Prenna's group and arrived in the same place at the same time. He urges Prenna to tell Ethan, who he says knows more than he's letting on, and to stop wearing the glasses and taking the pills. He tells her that the rules she must follow are not for protecting the time natives (people in 2014) but for controlling Prenna's people. When Prenna tries to seek out Ben once more, she witnesses his murder and realizes his true identity.

Prenna acknowledges the truth of what Ben has told her to Ethan and they decide they need to act. But first Prenna needs to speak with her mother. This results in her being kidnapped by the counselors and taken to a farm to prevent her from acting on May 17. The reader is never really given a reason for why this is happening, but no matter, Ethan springs Prenna from her prison and they head to the storage locker where they discover the information that tells them that a key scientist, Mona Ghali, whom Ethan interned with the previous summer, is murdered by a man named Andrew Baltos at her lab in Teaneck. Ghali it turns out is working on wave energy and her work has all been stolen. Prenna and Ethan must work to prevent Mona's murder and save the future from the scourge of a deadly plague brought on by climate change.

Discussion

The Here And Now starts out with a unique storyline, time travelers on a mission to go back to when a plague that is ravaging their world, began, in order to save it. There's a forbidden romance and a heroine struggling to adapt to life in a different time, experiencing rebellion at all the rules and the totalitarian type of life they lead. However, Brashares fails to develop her premise to the depth it deserves, leaving plenty of questions unanswered as the story moves forward and employing multiple coincidences and contrived events that are neither explained nor developed properly. For example why would a thousand people need to travel to an earlier time to prevent the plague? Such a large number of people would almost certainly increase the chance that someone would inadvertently affect the future in a way that leads to "uncontainable changes". How did they determine that they needed to return to 2010 and not some other year? What is Postremo - a city, a country? How did the time travel work and why were there not more travelers after the initial thousand? Can they time travel only one way? When Prenna discovers the fork in time and goes to her community, one would think these people would want to investigate her claims and act. Instead they kidnap her to prevent her from acting. No explanation is given for their behaviour other than they have gotten comfortable in their new "time".

The novel also suffers from poor pacing; after Prenna and Ethan discover who is to be murdered, they take time out to go shopping, visit the beach and play cards. The reader has to wade through these chapters to get to the climax of the novel - Prenna and Ethan's attempt to prevent Mona's murder. Because this is an action based novel and not a long one at that, characterization is shallow. Neither Ethan nor Prenna's mother are well developed characters.

Brashare's premise for The Here And Now might have worked hds she developed her ideas over the course of two or three novels, taking the effort to more carefully craft her storyline, develop her characters, world build and work out the science.

As most readers know, Ann Brashares is the author of the immensely popular Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. This novel's unique premise held much promise that was not realized. The novel's ending appears to leave open the possibility of a second book.

Book Details:
The Here and Now by Ann Brashares
New York: Delacorte Press      2014
242 pp.

Worlds We Make by Megan Crewe

This novel is the final book in the Fallen World trilogy, a series of novels set in Canada, about a plague devastated world and one girl's struggle to save it.

Kaelyn, Leo, Gav, Tobias, Justin and Anika have left Toronto and are on their way to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Kaelyn has a cooler containing vials of vaccine serum plus her father's notes on how to sequence the vaccine. She had hoped to find help in Toronto, but the city was in chaos, controlled by a man named Michael and his gang known as the Wardens. When the Wardens learned of Kaelyn's vaccine, they became determined to steal it. Now the six of them are running for their lives, hoping to reach Atlanta without another run-in with the Wardens.

The black SUV the fled Toronto in, becomes disabled with a flat tire, forcing them to stop at a home. During their stop, Gav wakens and becomes very ill, turning so violent they have to lock him in a room in the house they've taken shelter in. He dies overnight and the next morning Tobias' illness begins to manifest itself.

Meanwhile, Leo attempts to contact the CDC via radio, but only manages to receive a transmission from the Wardens who are listening in and warn them that they will take the vaccine. Nevertheless, Kae and her friends forge onward. When they run low on fuel, they stop at a home and Kae orders Leo to take all the gasoline stored in the owner's shed, even though she understands how this person will feel when he returns to find he's been robbed. Kae knows Leo wonders what kind of person she's becoming - someone who must push her conscience down to do the things required in a world where each must look out for themselves. When they attempt to contact the CDC again, they reach Dr. Sheryl Guzman. However, when they explain to her what they have and what they are trying to do, Guzman is skeptical. Kae proves to Guzman who she is and that it was her father, microbiologist Dr. Gordon Weber, who made the first vaccine. Guzman tells Kae that she must make it to Atlanta on her own but that when she gets into the city to contact her and she will help her make her way to the CDC. She also hints that things are not stable where the CDC is situated.

As it turns out the Wardens are hot on the group's trail. When Kae and the group go out to search for Tobias who has left the group, they discover the Wardens searching a house where they have parked the SUV. Barely managing to escape and leaving Tobias to his fate, they find themselves being hunted by Michael and the Wardens in helicopters. In what becomes a game of cat and mouse with Michael, Kae's group finds themselves in a race against time to make it to Atlanta. Complicating matters is that fact that both groups have indicated to Kae that their will be restrictions on who gets the vaccine once it's developed. Kae decides that she can have a say in they type of world that will exist once the plague has been brought under control. Can she devise a plane that ensures that regardless of whether Michael or the CDC makes the vaccine, no one will be denied treatment.

Worlds We Make is a fitting conclusion to Crewe's trilogy, but it is predictable and bland. The linear storyline throws no surprises and even the deaths of two of the characters are to be expected. Crewe wraps up her story in a tidy manner, ending on a positive note. There's nothing special here, except that readers of the previous two novels will simply want to know how it all ends.

There are no especially brilliant characters and even the villain, Michael, isn't a particularly bad person. Perhaps the deaths of too many characters in this trilogy ultimately worked against the storyline.

Book Details:
Worlds We Make by Megan Crewe
New York: Hyperion   2014
280 pp.

Champion by Marie Lu

Champion opens with Daniel Altan Wing (Day) living in San Francisco with his younger brother Eden. They have settled there so Eden who was made into a biological weapon by the Republic can recover from the effects of the experimentation done on him. Day is contacted by the Denver City Patrol requesting that he attend an emergency meeting in Denver during the Independence Day Ball. Day is also personally contacted by June Iparis, one of the Princeps-Elect. She tells Day that the Republic has received a communication from the Colonies stating that the plague is spreading throughout their war-front cities. For the last four months, the war has been on hold, while the Republic and the Colonies have worked on a peace treaty. That treaty is now off.

When Day travels to Denver and attends the emergency meeting he learns the truth about what is happening. The Colonies are demanding the Republic hand over the cure or they will invade the Republic with the help of the world superpower, Africa. June tells Day that they want him to bring Eden in for more experiments so they can try to find a cure for the new plague. Day refuses June's request.

After meeting with Day June attends the sentencing of those Patriots who intended to follow through with the assassination of Anden. Razor has already been executed and June attends the sentencing of Captain Thomas Bryant and Commander Natasha Jameson.

Meanwhile Day who has an infection in his hippocampus, suffers a severe setback and is hospitalized. Doctors treat him, changing his medication but tell him he has at most two months to live. While he is recovering at home, the Republic Armor is attacked by the Colonies. Due to the timing of the attack and the fact that both Bryant and Jameson are freed when their cohort of guards is changed, it appears that the Colonies are being aided by traitors within the Republic. At this time Eden is evacuated to Los Angeles.

Anden decides he must contact Antarctica for military help so he, June and the two other Princeps-Elects, Serge and Mariana travel there. June finds the Antarctican society to be much more technologically advanced. President Ikari refuses to supply military aid, instead offering scientists to help find a cure for the plague. He does indicate that Antarctica will supply military aid however, if they are offered land. Ikari also tells Anden that the Republic of America and the Colonies borders and ports must be sealed.

Denver falls to the Colonies just before Anden and June return to the Republic, forcing them to land in Los Angeles. There they meet up with Day at the Central Hospital where they learn that Tess has become ill with the plague. This event is the impetus that finally pushes Day to bring in his brother Eden for further testing.

At this time Day reveals to June that the Chancellor of the Colonies has offered him immunity as well as a guarantee of June's safety in exchange for Day leading the people into accepting the rule of the Colonies. Day has no intention of doing this but he knows he must come up with some kind of plan.

When the testing on Eden reveals a stunning result, and the Colonies prepare to attack Los Angeles, June and Day devise a plan to both  thwart the attack and force military intervention by Antarctica. Can they save the Republic from the Colonies' insidious grasp without losing everything they hold dear?

Discussion

Champion is a thrilling finale to the Legends series, with a page-turning climax that leads to a sad but hopeful ending. Lu ties up all the lose ends and even takes her readers ten years into the future. Readers learn a bit more about the larger world as June and Day step outside of the Republic to travel to Antarctica. The encounter an advanced society where behaviour is strictly monitored, where everything has points - a feature June soon tires of.

Like the two novels before it, Champion is well written and essentially plot driven. Nevertheless, Lu does a good job of developing the two main characters throughout the series, focusing on their heroic journey to creating a more just society. Day and June, although initially on different paths, band together to forge a new path, mirroring the journey the Colonies and the Republic take. Day began his journey to rescue his brother, reveal the true nature of the Republic and take it down in doing so. June was the Republic's prodigy but Day made her aware of what was truly going on. Both Day and June quickly discovered the Colonies did not offer the alternative they had hoped for. Instead, they end up working to save the very regime they worked so hard to bring down. And, as a result they just might affect society in the Colonies too. In many ways, Day and June are both very tragic figures who have lost everyone dear to them, and almost lose each other.

Readers will enjoy the action sequences which are well written. Lu maintains the tension by telling the story in alternating chapters written from June and Day's perspectives. The world map at the front of the novel helps readers develop a sense of the world June, Day and Anden live in.

Overall, a solid, exciting finish to a well written series.

Book Details:
Champion by Marie Lu
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 2013
369 pp.

Legend by Marie Lu

Legend is a gripping dystopian thriller from beginning to end. Lu's debut novel is a brilliant start to what promises to be a well written, exciting trilogy.

What was once the City of Los Angeles is now the Republic, while the eastern portion of the continent is known as the Colonies. Much of the Republic is flooded and lies in ruin, with decaying high rises, impoverished people and frequent plagues. Run by an aging presidential leader, Elector Primo, the Republic is at war with the Colonies.

Daniel Altan Wing, who goes by the name of Day, is 15 years old and leads the life of a fugitive - that of the Republic's most wanted criminal. Day is wanted for numerous crimes including assault, arson, theft, and destruction of military property. He's highly intelligent and physically gifted. But Day apparently failed the Trial - a test taken when you are 10 years old and designed to determine your fate in life. If you pass the test depending upon your score you continue on to high school and university or college. If your score is low, you join the poor, working in the power plants or water turbines. If you fail, you are sent to the labs to be examined for genetic imperfections. You never see your family again.

Day failed his trial but he managed to escape the labs and has been on the run ever since. His mother believes he is dead. But Day is very much alive and when he sees his family identified as suffering from the plague, he breaks into a hospital hoping to steal plague cures. Things don't go as planned and Day ends up injured and confronting Captain Metias Iparis as he escapes. He wounds Iparis and disappears into the slum sector of Los Angeles.

In contrast to Day, June Iparis, is 15 year old prodigy of the Republic. She and her family are wealthy citizens, her parents having been medical researchers. After the death of her parents, June lives with her brother Metias, in an apartment in Los Angeles. June achieved a perfect Trial score and is about to graduate from Drake University, the most prestigious in the Republic. But when her brother, Metias is killed by outlaw Day, June asks and receives permission to hunt him down and capture him. June succeeds but not before she gets to know Day who not only saves her life but also is not as malicious as portrayed by the Republic.

In an attempt to understand why Day doesn't match what the Republic has portrayed him as and to discover if his claim that he did not kill Metias is true, June hacks into the Republic's databases and reviews her brother's diaries. She makes a shocking discovery that forces her to make choices she never ever would have considered.

Discussion

The characters of Day, June and Metias are well drawn and supported by a small cast of secondary characters equally well portrayed. Day is a likeable hero and underdog and it's easy to root for him. He challenges June to think more deeply about what she is being told by the Republic. Even when she betrays him, Day is still good to the core, refusing to hate her for what she's done. June, in contrast, although as intellectually and physically gifted as Day is, must grow emotionally and morally.

Although 2011 will definitely be remembered for its focus on dystopian fiction, Lu's effort is by far one of the best published that year. The story, told in the alternating points of view of June and Day and easily distinguished by the change in font and colour of text, is fast paced, with a strong plot line. It will be interesting to see where Lu takes the story from here, since this book could easily stand alone.

Book Details:
Legend by Marie Lu
New York: G.P Putnam's Sons (Penguin Group)
305 pp.

Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari

Author Jo Treggiari offers teen readers a dystopian adventure/romance in Ashes, Ashes, that in my opinion, had great potential but ultimately fails to meet the mark.

Sixteen year old Lucy "Lucky" Holloway is surviving in post-apocalyptic New York City. The world started to fall apart when she was eleven years old. At that time, the first floods came, along with severe storms, hurricanes, tornadoes and then earthquakes. The storms melted the polar ice caps altering the shape of the continents. Many low-lying cities were obliterated. New York City became six or seven scattered islands connected to the mainland by bridges.

Four years after the severe weather began, a smallpox plague began to ravage society. The first wave of the plague killed many people but then it mutated and a second more devastating wave occurred in which most of the remaining population was killed. Only 1 out of a million people survived the second wave.

As the plague intensified, Lucy continued attending school never quite noticing that there were more and more empty desks. She was an outsider in high school, often going unnoticed by her peers. Posters of lists of symptoms appeared all over school. Lucy was repeatedly called to the health office for blood tests. The last time she was called for yet another blood sample, she'd discovered a thick dossier on her. When she was asked about why she had never been vaccinated, Lucy told them it was due to her older brother Alex's fatal reaction to a vaccination.

Lucy lost her superjock younger brother Rob, her brainiac older sister, Susan "Maggie" and both her parents. Eventually, Lucy left her family's home for the shelters in the city. Many of the highrises in New York city were massive concrete cairns containing the bodies of thousands of plague victims. Friendly bombing had turned areas of New York city into rubble. When the shelter she was living at was raided by "Sweepers", government workers searching for plague survivors, Lucy decided to strike out on her own.

She fled into the wilderness of Central Park, taking with her her mother's shawl, her father's hunting knife, a box of freeze-dried food, a bottle of spring water and her tenth-grade yearbook. She made herself a camp in the wilderness and this is where we find her when Ashes, Ashes opens.

However, the course of Lucy's life is changed once again when she goes out on a walk and is hunted by a pack of wild dogs. She is aided in escaping the dogs by a handsome young man named Aidan. He tells her that he's been watching her and that she is being hunted by the Sweepers who send out the dogs to find survivors. The Sweepers are the people who live in the Compound on Roosevelt Island where the smallpox hospital is located. Aidan encourages her to come live with his band of survivors. Although Lucy declines his invitation, when her home is destroyed days later, she decides she has had enough of living on her own and treks to the survivor's camp on Ward's Island.

But Aidan's camp isn't safe either and Lucy learns that there are frequent raids by the Sweepers who kidnap people and infect them with the plague. Lucy, Aidan and their fellow survivors decide to rescue a recent group of kidnapped children only to discover that the situation was a cleverly laid trap to catch Lucy, the sole unvaccinated survivor of the plague.

There's no doubt that Treggiari develops the setting of her story well with vivid descriptions of the destruction wreaked by the climate disasters and the rapid annihilation of the population by plague. Because Lucy spends the first part of the story alone, the first 100 pages or so lack dialogue for the most part. However, the author does manage to portray Lucy's resilience and strength of character in describing how she has survived for over a year by herself. Treggiari also utilizes detailed description and two major events to capture the reader's attention.

The middle section of the book deals primarily with Lucy's struggle to fit into Aidan's camp and details her growing attraction to Aidan. There is a strong development of conflict between Lucy and another survivor, Del who is also attracted to Aidan. I felt the author did a good job of portraying the difficulties survivors would have living in the post-apocalyptic wilderness as well as their fears and hopes.

The ending however, was less satisfying. Although suspenseful, the result was predictable and anti-climatic.

For those who might be puzzling over the book's title, Ashes, Ashes is a reference to a version of Ring Around the Rosy whose origins are traced back to the Great Bubonic Plague of London in 17th century England.

Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
"Ashes, Ashes"
We all fall down!

The rosy red rash was a symptom of the plague, usually a rash with a ring around it. Posies were carried in pockets to ward off the smell of disease which was thought to be the way illness was transmitted. The ashes, ashes refers to the cremation of dead bodies, the blackening of the skin and so forth. Plague survivors in Ashes,Ashes are described as being hideously deformed, with blackened skin and red eyes.




Book Details:
Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari
New York: Scholastic Press 2011
344pp.