The Future of Us

I heard about The Future of Us on NPR about a month ago. I didn't catch the whole story, but heard enough to pique my interest. And when it was over, they said who the authors were—Carolyn Mackler and Jay Asher. Asher wrote a book called Thirteen Reasons Why, which was about a girl who committed suicide and left behind cassette tapes addressed to the people that brought her to that point of hopelessness. It was a real twisted idea, but a powerful story about how our actions have consequences and how much we can hurt a person.

The Future of Us is another story about the consequences of our actions, but in a much different light. Two characters, Josh and Emma, find their Facebook pages fifteen years into the future. (The story takes place in 1996 and they are looking ahead to when they are 31 years old.) As someone who is not on Facebook, the whole phenomenon fascinates me. There is a certain allure to social networking, but I haven't succumbed to its temptation; to be perfectly honest, mostly because I'm not the best at balance. I was on Friendster way back when and it was so addictive. It is easier to avoid it altogether than risk getting sucked in and obsessing over things I or my friends have posted. This book once again made me feel like my decision to stay away from the site is a good one. Emma gets pretty obsessed with the snippets of her future life she gets through these posts. Neurotic, some might say and yet I could relate to poor Emma.

The Future of Us is a quick, interesting read about how the choices we make affects our life stories. As someone who always thinks “what if I would have done...” or “I should've did this instead of that...” it was a nice reminder that my life would not have turned out this way had I done this instead of that. And sometimes we need that reminder.

Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler