The Futures is the story of young people growing up in a specific time in America, but the lessons are universal.
Julia and Evan meet at college. Their relationship is not perfect but they love each other. When Evan is offered a job too good to be true, working for a financial company in New York City, he imagines a glorious future with wealth, status, and success. Julia tags along, with no idea of what she wants to do with her life.
As Evan's work consumes his energy and soul, Julia feels neglected. At twenty-two, she thinks, she should have more than lonely evenings, a boyfriend too distracted and tired to even consider her needs, and a job she hates.
Communication, intimacy and mutual support compromised, each is drawn to other lovers. In anger, Julia betray's Evan's involvement in a bribery scandal in a futures trade for his boss.
I admit I passed on this book for quite a while because I thought I was too old. I have 60+ years of experience in relationships. I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. And I share some things with Julia and Evan: I moved as a young twenties to a big city, looked for work during the 1970s economic downturn, and ended up in a job I hated: customer service for an insurance company. Meantime, my husband's new career left him full of self-doubt and anxiety.
It turned out that I understood Julia and Evan much better than I thought I would.
Knowing who you are, choosing a career that maintains your integrity, and learning how to love is what being in one's twenties is all about. We must discard childish selfishness in relationships, and learn not to depend on the approval and affirmation from others. Emotional maturity involves forgiving ourselves, and those we love, for being merely human.
Anna Pitoniak has captured this aspect of the human experience.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Futures
Anna Pitoniak
Little Brown
$26 hard cover
ISBN: 9780316354172
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