The Futures

The Futures
Anna Pitoniak
Lee Boudreaux Books (January 17, 2017), 320 pages
Kindle edition $12.99, Amazon hardcover $14.95

I returned to the world of fiction for this one.

In this novel Julia and Evan are in a relationship at Yale. Julia is from a Boston blue blood family. Evan is a hockey player from a small town in Canada. As graduation rolls around Evan has lined up a job with a brokerage house in New York City while Julia is at loose ends. Not having a lot of options, Julia moves in to Evan’s apartment.

We know from the outset that the relationship is in trouble. Julia tells us that directly in the prologue. In alternating chapters narrated by Julia and Evan we learn of their struggles. The brokerage firm deals with the effects of the Great Recession and Julia finds a job at a non-profit organization through connections her parents had. Evan becomes involved in business dealings that are not only questionable, but downright illegal. Julia is inadvertently (or not) responsible for those dealings being exposed.

Both people make mistakes and both make bad decisions. Each had betrayed the other, as Evan’s friend Arthur pointed out. The book ends a little too neatly and neither Evan nor Julia seem to have to pay for their actions.

Nonetheless, I was carried along by the book and its narrative. The Futures is not a “page turner” in the conventional sense, but I kept turning the pages wanting to know what would happen to the characters next.