The Future of Us Blog Tour: Authors Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler reveal their best and worst high school memories.

Thanks to Jay & Carolyn for sharing their best and worst high school memories! Have you read The Future of Us? It's a cute read with a fantastic premise and a must-read for lovers of 90's nostalgia. I'll be posting my review of The Future of Us tomorrow, so check back then for more.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Books.
Release date: January 5th 2012.

It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right - and wrong - in the present.

Guest Post: Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler reveal their best and worst high school memories:

Jay’s worst high school memory:

I was in stagecraft, which meant I helped put together the sets and do sound and lighting for the school plays.  I don’t remember which play we were doing, but I was on the sound crew.  The play was a comedy and required the sound crew to intentionally miss their cues.  For example, an actor might comment that someone should be calling on the phone momentarily.  And I wasn’t supposed to let the phone ring yet.  Eventually, the actors would look over the audience toward the sound booth, say something sarcastic, and then the phone would ring.  Maybe if the play was on Broadway, the audience would’ve realized the “mistakes” were in the script.  Instead, they just thought I was horrible at my job.  At school, I heard people comment that the play was a lot of fun…except for the sound crew.  I wanted to yell, “It was in the script!”

Jay’s best high school memory:

I was in a class called Peer Helpers, where we were trained as student counselors in case another student wasn’t comfortable speaking with an adult.  The Peer Helpers were from many different social groups around campus, and I hardly knew any of the other students when I joined.  In order to get our class to feel like a cohesive group, we spent a weekend camping together.  At school, our groups of friends seldom mixed, but over that weekend we played games together, played pranks on each other, and talked about some very serious issues.  After returning to school, we still hung out with our usual friends, but it also felt like I had friends all over campus.

 

 Carolyn’s worst high school memory:

My best and worst high school memories both involve musical theater, which is odd because I didn’t get a part in the school play until my senior year.  I always knew, I knew, that if I were in a play, I would find my people.  Unfortunately, like all things in high school, there was an in-crowd among the play director and the theater group and the same kids got in every year.  That didn’t include me, though I did audition several times.  That ties into my worst memory.  My sophomore year, I was auditioning for the spring musical and we each had to stand up and sing a cappella in front of our peers.  Including my huge, major, all-year-long crush. I picked a song totally out of my range and, on a high note, my voice cracked and everyone in the audience howled.  Including my huge, major, all-year-long crush.  I can still TO THIS DAY picture him laughing at me.

Carolyn’s best high school memory:

My senior year, my talent finally shined through (or they took pity on me).  I got into the chorus of the spring musical and was quickly promoted to lead dancer.  Look what they were missing all along!  My best friend was also a lead dancer, and we soon had a huge group of us hanging out all the time.  And it was true – I had found my people.  Not to mention that I fell in love for the first time with a cute guy in the cast.  And no, it wasn’t the person who had laughed at me two years before.  I was over him.

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The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler is out now from Simon and Schuster Children's Books, £6.99.

Jay's Blog

Carolyn's Blog

The Future of Us on Facebook