Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon

Genre: Romance/Young Adult

Publication Date: June 4, 2024 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

If you’ve read Today Tonight Tomorrow, you are familiar with Rowan Roth and Neil McNair. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing out and should pick up a copy immediately. These two characters are one of the great YA romances in literature. In Past Present Future, we pick back up at the end of the summer, when Rowan and Neil are heading to separate East Coast colleges (Emerson for her, NYU for him), and struggling with the classic long-distance relationship trope. (Speaking of tropes, this series is full of some of the best of them. Enemies to lovers, rivals to lovers, emotional scars, right person – wrong time, forced proximity, opposites attract, etc.)

One of my favorite things about this book is how realistically Rowan and Neil are written. They go through the struggles of so many teenagers before them – family issues, loneliness, making new friends, feeling unsure about themselves and their abilities – in a way that is so incredibly relatable, funny when it’s called for, and melancholy when it is not. They each alternate between feeling hopeless and hopeful, lonely and fulfilled, scared and happy, and a myriad of other emotions that anyone who has survived their teen years can understand. 

One of the greatest strengths of Rowan and Neil’s relationship is their ability to communicate. Sure, they sometimes stumble and falter, but in the end, they are both mature enough to handle what life throws at them, and come out the other side even better than before. 

I am so glad Rachel Lynn Solomon decided to write this sequel. It is beautifully written. Readers deserved a second chance to check in on these characters as individuals, and as a couple, as they begin to navigate growing up together, and apart, and boy, did Solomon deliver. Perhaps down the road there will be a round three for Rowan and Neil? We can only hope.

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.