REVIEW: The Future of Us ... and a chance to win it!

I am a very lucky duck, because I won an ARC of The Future of Us from Corrie Wachob (you should follow her blog ... it's cute and funny!).  It's written by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler (what a pedigree!) and it has perhaps the coolest YA premise I've heard in a while:

From the release: The Future is Us is set in 1996, when less than half of all American high school students have ever used the internet. Facebook will not be invented for several more years. Emma just got a computer and an America Online CD-ROM with 100 free hours. When she and her best friend Josh log on to AOL they discover themselves on Facebook … fifteen years in the future. Everybody wonders what life has in store for them. Josh and Emma are about to find out. 

Of course, as soon as I read that, I couldn't wait to read it. The 90s? Hello, those are my teenage years. So when I saw that I won, I definitely did a happy dance around my apartment.

I cracked the spine and burned through this baby in days. I was hooked. The excitement of seeing all the little ripples of change was addicting. And I loved Josh as a character. I mean, what would you do if you were 16 year old boy who discovered he married the sexiest/coolest girl in school? I thought everything about him was so spot-on. Smart, funny, sensitive ... I wish Josh was my high school boyfriend.

But here's the thing: The Future of Us could have royally sucked (and let me be clear ... it DID NOT), and yet I'd still enjoy it for all the awesome period-appropriate pop culture shout-outs. Dave Matthews? Check. Discman? Check. Beepers? Check. How bout those times when your mom would have to kick you off the Internet because she was expecting a call? Oh, definitely check. And the tension of no cell phones DEFINITELY made an impact on the story ... and I mean TENSION. Oh, and how about all the times when I wanted the main characters to just Google things ... when Google wasn't even founded until 1998! This is historical fiction done just right, and I definitely recommend it.

Do you want to win an ARC of The Future of Us?  Of course you do! It's only the coolest book of the year, and it doesn't release until November 2011!  Leave a comment on this post and you're automatically entered to win. You can get extra entries by tweeting about the contest and following this blog.  That's three chances to win! Make sure to tell me if you got bonus entries in your comment so I can count everything!

Win an ARC of The Future of Us from @laurenemorrill http://bit.ly/mnexLu

The contest ends on Thursday, June 23rd! (I'd end it on Friday, but I'm going to be out of town for a derby tournament!)

Oh, and this isn't just any ARC. Corrie and I have decided to make it a traveling ARC. She's signed it, and so have I. So if you win, I highly encourage you to read, sign, and pass it along as well. Just think of all the places it will go by November!