Future Shock

January 25, 2016
A young woman travels to the future in this temporal thriller, a series opener and Briggs’s (the Chasing the Dream series) first book for teens. Due to the eidetic memory 17-year-old Elena Martinez has kept hidden all her life, she is selected by the powerful Aether Corporation to join several other talented teens on a trip 10 years into the future as part of a time-travel experiment. When they overshoot their mark by two decades, they spend a harrowing day eluding authorities and coping with radical changes in society and technology. After Elena and her erstwhile allies learn that most of their group is fated to die just after their return, they work to discover the truth behind their mission and their perhaps-inevitable dooms. Briggs crafts a tense tale of predestination and paranoia, fleshed out with a diverse cast and an intriguing premise. While the author concentrates more on worldbuilding and plot twists than on her characters, leaving several of the protagonists underdeveloped, the overall presentation is solidly entertaining. Ages 13–up. Agent: Kate Schafer Testerman, KT Literary.

February 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-Elena believes that her eidetic, or photographic, memory makes her a freak, and moving from foster home to foster home after her father ends up in prison for killing her mother only reinforces her thinking. Being different in foster care is asking for trouble, and her violent temper surfaces as she defends other foster children who are bullied. When high-tech Aether Corporation promises to reimburse her for her participation in a research project to the extent that she could support herself for the rest of her life, she can't say no, even when the project involves a dangerous time travel experiment. Four other teens with special skills, including three from foster care, are recruited with her, and together, they forge into the unknown, with deadly consequences none of them could have predicted. Everything that can go wrong does, and the teens are left to deal with the past as well as the future on their own, unsure if they can trust one another or the Aether scientists who are using them. This is an entertaining science fiction murder mystery that doesn't particularly stand out but should appeal to James Patterson fans along with readers of Michael Grant's "Gone" series (HarperCollins). VERDICT A good fit for collections serving science fiction fans and teens in marginalized situations, who will appreciate the attention given to the emotional consequences of the foster care experience.-Kerry Sutherland, Akron-Summit County Public Library, OH

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2016
A Latina teen with total recall joins four other young Angelenos with special skills on a secret time-travel mission to the future. Although she has an eidetic memory, Elena Martinez has little else going for her. She's an intelligent foster-care kid about to turn 18 without any foreseeable job or college prospects. When an executive from the Aether Corporation offers her a spot on a short-term project for a great deal of money, she has no qualms about signing on. Her team includes three fellow desperate teens--hotheaded black mechanic Chris, homeless white lockpick Trent, introverted Asian artist Zoe--and Adam, a cute, white science nerd. Their mission is to slip through a time portal leaving them 10 years in the future for 24 hours. They're to collect technology, sketches, and impressions of the future world. But when they end up 30 years in the future and discover that everyone but Adam doesn't seem to exist anymore, the conspiracy theories begin to fly. The author refreshingly swaps teen-lit gender stereotypes in the fairly formulaic but nonetheless satisfying romance: she's the edgy, brooding girl with the heart of gold, and he's the adorable, inexperienced good guy. Those who spot the foreshadowing won't be surprised by the twist, but the story remains intriguing enough to keep reading. An absorbing, if occasionally predictable, time-travel mystery with a side of romance. (Science fiction. 13-17)

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