The Here and Now by Ann Brashares, published in 2014, blends speculative fiction and romance with a hauntingly urgent environmental message. Known for her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Brashares ventures into dystopian territory in this novel, creating a narrative set in contemporary New York that is quietly invaded by time travelers from a grim future ravaged by climate catastrophe. Seventeen-year-old Prenna James is one such traveler, part of a secretive community governed by strict rules designed to avoid altering the timeline they’ve come to inhabit. But when Prenna begins to question these constraints, her defiance leads her toward a forbidden connection and a mystery that could reshape both past and future.

Plot Summary

In the early light of April 2010, a boy named Ethan wanders alone by Haverstraw Creek. What begins as a quiet fishing trip ends with the air shimmering before him, shifting like water, parting to reveal something impossible. From that blurred space between worlds, a girl stumbles into existence, soaked, shivering, and silent. She vanishes almost as quickly as she appears, but Ethan never forgets her – the strange bruise of numbers on her arm, the haunted expression on her face, the way she seemed both lost and not of this time.

Four years pass, and Ethan sees her again – clothed now, quiet and reserved, sitting just behind him in a high school classroom. Her name is Prenna James. And though no one else might see it, he knows she’s the girl from the creek.

Prenna has lived in New York since she was twelve, but not in the way others live. She and her mother arrived as part of a secret community of time immigrants, fugitives from a future consumed by blood plagues, environmental ruin, and unbearable heat. In that time, mosquitoes carry death, cities collapse, and the rich retreat into sealed biodomes while the poor suffocate. Her community has rules – twelve of them, memorized like scripture and spoken aloud each year in a desanctified church on April 23. The rules forbid medical care outside the group, ban all discussion of time travel, and most importantly, outlaw intimate relationships with time natives.

Prenna keeps her head down, follows the rules, recites what she’s told. But her memories won’t fade – of brothers lost to disease, a father who vanished the night before their departure, and a boy with warm eyes who once offered her his sweatshirt beside a glowing stream.

She tries to blend in. She walks through Central Park with her peers, dances awkwardly at community socials, accepts scoldings from her counselor, Mr. Robert. But inside her, a voice grows louder with each passing day – a voice that questions, remembers, aches. That voice whispers every time Ethan looks at her like she’s real.

Ethan doesn’t play by any script. He calls her Penny or Ghouly, drags her into hangman games during class, and watches her too closely not to know something’s wrong. His curiosity, like hers, is quiet but persistent. He remembers their meeting years ago, even if it feels like a dream. He knows she carries secrets, but he waits, gently, for her to trust him.

When a homeless man known as Ben Kenobi summons Prenna to a strange, dim room above the community center, everything begins to unravel. He speaks not like a madman, but like someone who knows her – who understands the future as she does. He warns her of a single moment in time, fast approaching, when the course of history can be changed. A murder, he says, on May 17. A death that shifts the balance toward the future Prenna escaped. He doesn’t know all the details, only that she, and possibly Ethan, might be the ones to stop it.

Ben’s words gnaw at her. She tries to pretend nothing’s changed, but she watches the date approach with mounting fear. Her community pretends to act for the good of the world, but all they do is hide. When she questions the leaders, they answer with silence or subtle threats. When she confides in Ethan, she risks everything.

They begin to investigate together – two teenagers sneaking glances in the hallway, passing notes under desks, running through parks and libraries in pursuit of a truth no one else believes. Prenna learns that the man marked for death on May 17 is a scientist – one who may have developed a theory that could reverse climate catastrophe if it reaches the right ears. His death, though seemingly random, is the key to a future with hope.

Their search deepens, and with each step, Prenna slips further from her community. She defies curfew, ignores surveillance, discards her special glasses. The leaders grow suspicious. Her counselor warns her again, but it’s too late. She’s chosen Ethan, chosen questions over obedience, truth over silence. Even love over fear.

She and Ethan flee to the woods, seeking answers and freedom. For a while, the world blooms around them – pine needles underfoot, sun on skin, laughter unburdened. In that quiet, they talk about everything. Ethan tells her he remembers their first meeting by the river. He shows her the number he wrote in his notebook that day: 51714. The same number inked on her arm when she arrived.

She tells him the truth. About the future, the blood plagues, the tyrannies of control. About the community and the rules and the lies. She expects him to recoil, but he doesn’t. He listens, believes her, and then does something worse than rebuke: he forgives her for not telling him sooner.

They make a plan to stop the murder. The scientist is scheduled to speak at a symposium. His killer – an unstable man Prenna has seen in old surveillance footage – will slip through security with a gun. Prenna and Ethan race to the venue, dodging watchers from her community, outrunning the deadline of fate.

They reach the building moments before the man draws his weapon. Ethan tackles him while Prenna screams for help. In the chaos, the man is subdued. The scientist survives. The world, for now, turns differently.

But the cost is steep. Prenna’s defiance has marked her. Her mother, quiet and distant for years, helps her escape before the leaders find her. In a tearful moment, her mother reveals she too once questioned everything – and lost the love of her life for it.

Ethan offers to run with Prenna, to vanish into the world together. She wants nothing more, but she knows what she carries. The future isn’t gone – it still lingers, still waits. She must do more, must help others see the path ahead. If she stays with him, she will only bring him danger.

So she leaves. A bus station, a hug that lingers too long, a kiss that tastes like beginnings and ends. Prenna walks away, unseen in a crowd of travelers. Ethan watches until she’s gone, then opens a letter she left him. Inside is a promise – that she will keep fighting for a better future. That their time isn’t over, only paused. That love, like time, can bend without breaking.

Main Characters

• Prenna James: The protagonist, Prenna is a time immigrant from the late 21st century, a world devastated by pandemics and ecological collapse. Intelligent, inwardly rebellious, and deeply conflicted, she navigates her life under the rigid control of her community. Her yearning for truth and freedom, combined with her deepening emotional connection to Ethan, drives her to challenge the system she’s supposed to trust.

• Ethan Jarves: Prenna’s classmate and confidant, Ethan is warm, curious, and emotionally intelligent. Unaware at first of Prenna’s true origins, he harbors memories of a strange encounter with her years prior that he never forgot. His bond with Prenna intensifies as they uncover secrets, and his courage and loyalty make him her essential partner in resisting the dark fate mapped out for humanity.

• Mrs. Crew: A chilling figure within the time travel community, Mrs. Crew embodies the authoritarian ethos of the group’s leadership. Her cold demeanor and absolute devotion to the rules render her both protector and enforcer – even playing the “angel of death” role for those whose illnesses or rule-breaking threaten exposure.

• Mr. Robert: Prenna’s assigned counselor and a prominent community authority. He represents the suffocating pressure to conform, consistently monitoring Prenna’s behavior. His role is subtle but controlling, enforcing surveillance and psychological constraints under the guise of guidance.

• Prenna’s Mother: Once a passionate physician, she has become emotionally withdrawn in the present day, deeply scarred by the family’s past losses. Her silence and rigidity reflect the trauma of their escape from the future and the burden of surviving within the community’s rules.

Theme

• The Ethics of Time Travel: Central to the novel is the question of intervention. Prenna’s community forbids altering the past, yet their very presence in 2014 is a paradox. The story wrestles with the consequences of inaction in the face of impending disaster, asking whether moral responsibility trumps the laws of time.

• Environmental Collapse: Brashares uses the future world Prenna escaped as a dire warning. The novel is saturated with images of climate catastrophe – deadly heat, mosquito-borne plagues, and social disintegration. This theme serves as both a backdrop and a call to action, urging readers to confront the long-term consequences of environmental neglect.

• Surveillance and Control: The time travelers live under constant scrutiny, governed by twelve rigid rules designed to ensure secrecy and compliance. The community’s tactics mirror real-world authoritarian systems, suggesting a commentary on how fear and conformity erode freedom and identity.

• Love as Rebellion: Prenna’s growing feelings for Ethan symbolize a refusal to live in fear. Their relationship challenges the foundational rule against intimacy with time natives and underscores the novel’s assertion that love, empathy, and human connection are worth any risk.

• Memory and Identity: Throughout the book, Prenna grapples with the tension between who she is told to be and who she might become. Her past in a dying world shapes her perspective, but it’s in the present – through memory, resistance, and self-discovery – that she claims her agency.

Writing Style and Tone

Ann Brashares’ prose in The Here and Now is crisp and accessible, with an undercurrent of urgency that reflects the novel’s themes of time and danger. The narration alternates between contemplative and breathless, mirroring Prenna’s inner conflict and the fast-unfolding mystery she’s drawn into. Brashares employs a first-person point of view that is intimate and reflective, inviting the reader directly into Prenna’s experience – her fears, longings, and evolving sense of right and wrong.

The tone is simultaneously melancholic and hopeful. Brashares doesn’t shy away from depicting a harrowing future, yet she anchors the story in small, human moments of beauty, defiance, and tenderness. The tension between despair and possibility pulses through every chapter, especially in scenes between Prenna and Ethan, where emotional resonance takes precedence over exposition. There’s also a clear moral conviction at work – a desire to provoke thought about the present by envisioning the ruinous consequences of collective apathy.