The Future of Us-Summer Reading Response

   The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler is about how Facebook shows up on on 2 teens' (Josh and Emma) computer in 1996 when Facebook hasn't even been invented yet. They are able to see their life in 16 years and control it. The theme of the book is to just live your life and see what paths your future holds.

One example that seeing what will happen in the future is a dicey thing is that when Emma first goes on Facebook she sees that she is married to a guy named Jordan Jones Junior.  And when she reads her status updates she notices she isn't very happy with him.  So when she reads her biography and finds out they went to the same college -- Tampa State -- she takes it off her list and then the next day she has a new husband. Later when she reads about her new lives she doesn't like them and will just change them not thinking of the consequences of changing her life cause she can. The consequences for doing that are having something seriously bad and not being able to fix it. On Page 91 it says "I grab a black marker from my desk and draw a line through "Tampa State". If I don't go to college there, I won't meet Jordan. And if I don't meet Jordan-" This shows how Emma is meddling with her future based on vague information. This shows how meddling with your future based on little information isn't good because there is so much you don't know.

Another example that just seeing where life takes you is better than changing and meddling with your future is on page 149; it says, "Emma groans. "I sound about as happy as before. I need to do something bigger." "How do you know you're not happy in this future? I thought you liked Kevin Storm." I say. "We're going to Kevin's favorite restaurant. And my babysitter has a habit of not showing up." "You're reading a lot in a little words." I say glancing at Emma." This shows how Emma is making assumptions too fast and if she doesn't like it she'll do something small to put her future on a different path.


At the end of the book Emma and Josh realize how they can't keep messing up their futures. How, yes, sometimes things will be bad or they'll be unhappy, but that ultimately they will be fine, and have a good life, that they will get to see what the future holds.