The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

The Here and Now (2014) (Hodder Children's Books)
Ann Brashares
Grade: C+
Genre: young adult / time travel
Source: own / NetGalley

General RBC 2015: A book set in the future 

Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.

These are the most important rules of Prenna’s community – the rules that she knows she must abide by if they’re to blend in and appear normal. Ethan is the first and only person who makes Prenna want to risk revealing her community’s secret: that they’re from another time … In the future, a mosquito-borne disease is rapidly killing huge swathes of humanity. The early twenty-first century is identified as a ‘safe haven’ where those who have managed to avoid the disease can start over. But the restrictive rules about never revealing where they’re from, never dramatically changing the course of history and never being intimate with someone from outside their community are put to the test as Prenna and Ethan are drawn into a course of events that has the potential to destroy the world – and history – as they know it …

My Best Of 2012

This is a rather delayed round-up of 2012, but better late than never. I'm sorely disappointed with my reading statistics for 2012 (102 books) and while it's understandable that I hardly had any time to read, I'd like 2013 to be better. Can't see how that's going to happen, but I've set myself a more manageable goal of 100 books for 2013 and it would be a tragedy if I couldn't even manage that.

I found some fantastic authors in 2012 and there's a number of books that have made it to my keepers shelf, so I wanted to take some time to share these with you all. These are by no means all books that were released in 2012, just my favourite of the year, so here goes my top eleven of the past year in the order in which they were reviewed:

1. Sweet Revenge by Nora Roberts (1988) (reviewed 29-4-2012 grade A+)
Given the sheer quantity of books that NR has published (over 200), the fact that I'm close to reading three-quarters of them and her genius at storytelling in general, there's a lot to choose from when picking my favourite. For a long time, Honest Illusions occupied that coveted spot but Sweet Revenge has by the tiniest margin knocked it off - at least, until I can get my hands on the former again for a re-read. Fantastic cast whose protagonists have possibly my all-time favourite occupation for fictional characters (thieves), brilliant writing, dialogue and just a wonderful feel-good story.

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

My Name is Memory (2010) (Hodder & Stoughton)

Ann Brashares

Grade: A-

Genre: YA romance

Sex scenes: fade out

Source: library

Re-incarnation can be boiled down pretty simply to the idea that when you die, you get born again in a new body. Daniel is pretty familiar with the concept: he's only done it dozens of times, again and again for the single purpose of finding the girl he loves - Sophia.

Daniel isn't your average re-incarnate. Unlike 99.9%* of the population, he has the unique ability to remember every single one of his past lives. Not only that, but he can recognise souls: people who were part of his past lives, which is how he manages to find Sophia every time. The names 'Daniel' and 'Sophia' are their names from their very first lives when they met and though they've changed time and time again, Daniel hangs onto the comfort of their familiarity. He's been filthily rich and dirt poor across several continents; some lives were substantially shorter than others but not in a single one of them has he managed to get Sophia (on the times he's managed to find her) to remember her past lives with him so they can have their happy ending.