Character Reading Response:"The Future of Us" By Jay Asher

In the book, I am currently reading is called; “The Future of Us” By: Jay Asher. The main character of this book is named Emma Nelson. Her parents are divorced and her dad and her step mom just had a new baby. Emma is now in high school and is getting ready to go to college. The problem Emma has in the book is that one day her friend, Josh Templeton gives her a CD-ROM and she downloads it in her computer and Facebook appears, but it is 1996, and Facebook gets invented in 2004, which means she was looking at her future profile. The theme of this book I have started to notice so far is that, things or dreams you expect don’t have to become true all the time. This theme relates to Emma because, when she found out her life wasn’t going to be how she expected her self-esteem went down and really became worried and serious about her life.

 

            Emma also seems to be gullible. One of the reasons is because, the Facebook she is constantly checking for the bad future she is worrying about may also be a prank made by someone, and instead of thinking it may be a prank about her future, she actually ends up believing in it, instead of confirming it isn’t a prank. Also even if it wasn’t a prank she shouldn’t get tensed so much or lose her self-esteem, but the good thing she is doing, is that she is trying to figure out how bad her life is going to be by checking into the details in Facebook more. By doing that she probably can fix her future. I can relate to her a little because I am also sort of gullible, but I don’t become solemn or get my self-esteem lowered. On the other hand I think Emma has a stronger reason to be solemn, because if anyone were to find out there future is going to be bad, no one would be happy about it. Like Emma said to Josh when she found out, “I’m talking about my future. I’m never going to be happy.” Anyone wouldn’t  be happy knowing their future is going to be terrible, and if Emma is feeling solemn for knowing her future isn’t going to be great, she has a reason for that, but she should at least try to figure out if “Facebook” actually has accurate evidence about her future.

            Emma also happens to be interested in other people’s lives. One of the reasons I noticed is that because, I think she is curious to see if her future is the only bad one. One of the specific friend’s profile she keeps on checking is, Josh Templeton, who also knows about this Facebook and is one of the future that Emma is curious about because for many reasons. One of the reasons is because they used to be best friends and neighbors almost their whole lives until November when everything became awkward between them. Another reason is because Emma found out in Facebook that in the future a girl named Sydney Mills will be married to Josh, and that is a good thing because Sydney is a girl that every boy likes in school. That was one of the reason Emma is curious to see Josh’s future, because she wants to see how better Josh’s future is than hers. Like in the Josh’s Facebook comment it said “My baby’s having my first baby any day now”  and then Emma says “Wait, your first baby?” which means Emma is partially jealous of Josh’s future. These reasons relates to the theme I am seeing so far in the book by Emma seeing her dreams not coming true in the future and is also being jealous of Josh’s future because he is going to have a better life than her. 

In Conclusion, things or dreams you expect don’t have to become true all the time. This is a theme that Emma shows going in her life right now, so far in the book I have read up to. Later on in the book, I wonder how the theme of the book will slowly transfer to another in Emma’s life or will it.