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Dubray Review

The year is 1996. Very few teenagers have ever used the internet and social networking means hanging out with friends. Hardly anybody has a mobile phone, movies are on video rather than DVD, and there are years to go before the invention of the iPod.

Sixteen year-old Emma is given a PC as a gift from her absent father, so she and her best friend Josh power it up and connect to the internet. What appears on the screen is both shocking and strange: it’s a website called Facebook, featuring Emma and Josh and all their friends . . . only fifteen years into the future. They’re stunned as they scroll through the details of their lives in 2011: their jobs, where they live, and who they’re married to. Every time they refresh their profile pages, they see how the decisions they make now will affect their future selves. But if you catch a glimpse of the future and don’t like what you see, should you try to change it?

Told though the alternating narratives of Emma and Josh, The Future of Us is a timely and thought-provoking novel, co-written by the author of the bestselling Thirteen Reasons Why. It challenges the reader to think about how we use social media and reminds us to value our real-life friendships in the digital age.

- Kim Harte, Bray

Description

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.

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