The Future of Us
by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
Razorbill: New York
ARC reviewed, pub date November 21, 2011
It's 1996, the internet was accessed through the phone line, few people had computers, Jerry Maguire showed us the money, band camp hadn't yet been slandered, and Facebook wasn't even a wink in Mark Zuckerburg's prepubescent eye. Life-long best friends and neighbors Josh and Emma have been a bit on the outs since Josh let his burgeoning feelings for Emma be known. Emma's recently remarried dad has gifted her a computer. Josh's mom makes him bring over their AOL CD to install on her computer. When she does, it loads to a site she's never heard of, something called Facebook, where an woman in her early thirties bears a striking resemblance to her, in addition to sharing her first name. Even weirder, Josh has an older doppelganger with the same name too. But every time they reload the page, things seem to change in the lives of these strange same faced and named people. As they explore the site, Josh and Emma learn more about themselves and realize that the decisions they make change the lives of the people they will become. This fun book may be best suited to older YA's, and especially towards twenty to thirty somethings who will nostalgically remember well the days when it took forever to log in to AOL...
