From the Past

Right now I am reading the book "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D Salinger.  This book takes place in 1949, and is about sixteen-year-old student Holden Caulfield from New York City.  In this book, Holden has flunked out of many advance schools, because he never "applies himself to his school work". Holden tells this story in from after it takes place.  I think that this is really interesting.  Many stories are told in the present tense, so as you read it, the same thing is happening to the characters in the moment.  I think the fact that this book is written as the past, it gives it a special point of view.

Since this book is written from the future, the narrator already knows what is going to happen.  Because of this, the narrator can hint at something that is going to happen, but not actually tell the whole story.  I think this is interesting for the reader because it makes you really curious about the events that are going to come.  It also makes the reader guess or predict about the little hints that are given.  

Another reason that I think it is interesting for a book to be written from the future is that the narrator/ main character already knows the whole story, so they can reflect on it.  As the story goes on, they know how each decision and event is going to affect the rest of the story.  They know if the things they do were good ideas, or bad, and they know what they are going to regret.  This is very different from books written in the present, because the main character doesn't yet know the affects of his actions.

Changing the Future

I recently reread the book, The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler.  This book is about two best friends, Josh Templeton and Emma Nelson in the year 1996.  When one of them gets a computer, they somehow find Facebook, which tells them about their future lives.   Their lives take lots of twists as Josh and Emma try to change the future, or preserve it as it is. Mistakes are made, but there's no way to change their futures back.

A big part of this book is Emma and Josh’s relationship.  In the book, when Emma realizes that if she does something in the present, it would cause a ripple in the time stream and change her future. For example, she changes where she lives from Ohio to London by saying that she will never move to Ohio and clicking the refresh button. At first, Emma only does small things, but her life doesn't change very much, and she's not happy with it, so to try and make a bigger change she kisses Josh.

In the past Josh had developed a crush on Emma, and thought she liked him too, so he kissed her. Emma didn't feel that way about Josh, and their friendship had been more fragile because of it, but Josh still likes Emma. So when Emma kissed Josh to create a change, he thought she was toying with his emotions. He thought she did that on purpose, and according to Facebook Josh never forgave Emma (he wasn't her friend on Facebook). Before this scene Emma was talking to her best friend Kellan and Kellan was asking Emma if anything might be between her and Josh. Emma thought about it, and said no way, but had second thoughts. Maybe Emma really did have some feelings for Josh, but didn't realize it. Josh gets really mad at Emma and starts to focus on his Facebook future, but later remembers a time when he tried to draw Emma. Josh is an amazing artist, but when he drew Emma he couldn't capture her into the drawing, and felt like he had failed. Maybe he was clouded by his emotions. Josh also had confronted Emma about her dating habits and how she went out with guys and didn't even like them and went straight to the next guy. But I think Josh wishes he was one of those guys, just he wants Emma to genuinely like him, and stay with him. He wants Emma to see how much he really likes her.