12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
First Love Lasts Forever...?, October 6, 2007
This review is from: Forever . . . (Mass Market Paperback)
I first read this book as a young teenager- I was probably about 14 years old. Since then I've reread it about 5 times and each time I love it a little more. At 14 I dreamed of a love like the story this book tells. At 16 I thought I had found the love that the book describes. But I truly understood at 18 after I have found true love and then lost it for the first time. This book is a beautiful, incredibly believable story of falling in and out of love for the first time. I think it's a must read for any teenager. Judy Blume is one of my favorite authors because of the way she makes her stories so realistic. Definitely a must read!!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Forever..., February 6, 2008
This review is from: Forever . . . (Mass Market Paperback)
I've never read a Judy Blume book until Forever. I was instructed to read this book for an adolescent literature class at UF. This book was written in the 70s but is still very relevent and realistic today. Blume paints a very believeable young romance and first sexual relationship. It may be slightly graphic at times but it doesn't sugar coat how unromantic losing your virginity really is. I believe the teenage girl, Katherine, can be considered a role model for young teens of today. She approaches sex responsibly and makes sure to protect herself. It is an easy read and could be a good book to introduce the discussion of sex to your teenaged daughter.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good for information, not so much for emotion, March 30, 2010
This review is from: Forever . . . (Mass Market Paperback)
This book dates from the 1970s when it was pretty hard for teens to get any information whatsoever about sex and sexual relationships - no Internet then, and parents and school officials were even more reluctant to talk about it than they are now. As most people know by now, the book is about two nice, normal older teenagers who meet at a party, date, fall in love and eventually find themselves wanting to have a sexual relationship with each other. The sex scenes are described in detail but in an informational, not a dramatic, scary or otherwise "weird" way. At the time the teens are having sex, they truly think they will be together forever, but later events cast doubt on their promise.
A couple of things should be noted: First of all, these are older teens, on the verge of going off to college and generally becoming adults. Second, although they keep their relationship pretty private, they have families who are not too concerned about whether they're having sex with each other, i.e. they don't really have to sneak around or worry about whether Daddy will be mad or Mother will disapprove, if they find out. Third, the decision to have sex is presented as not having too many consequences. No one gets pregnant, gets an STD, gets ostracized at school, gets jealous, gets too obsessed with sex, or gets dumped immediately after having sex. One character does get a little too attached, but the way it's presented, that's fairly minor - that person just needs to move on with their life and likely that will happen.
On the one hand, I can understand why all these issues were left out. The focus of this book is on presenting a sexual relationship that wasn't accompanied by a horrible tragedy or "punishment" for the people involved, so that teens could just focus on what a "normal" relationship was like, sexually and a little bit emotionally. Many if not most or all of the books prior to this time that involved teen sex had something terrible happening to the teens as a result, such as an unwanted pregnancy, ostracism or even death. It was a relief when this book came out that someone was presenting a view of teen sex divorced from the "drama".
On the other hand, it's highly unlikely that everyone's first teen sexual relationship would go as smoothly as it's portrayed in the book. This book is sort of like "Barbie and Ken Have Sex". The teens in the book don't have any big problems or issues or insecurities in their lives; they don't have disapproving families and they really love each other so it's not a case of someone just being hot for someone else. I'm sure there are relationships like the one in "Forever" but I'm equally sure there are ones that are more like "The Story of a Girl" by Sara Zarr, or like the ill-fated teen couple who seek an abortion in "My Darling, My Hamburger, or like numerous other books where sex doesn't go along like peaches and pie. Furthermore, one character ends up being very upset by the relationship in "Forever" and the book just kind of pushes that aside as a personal-growth moment. I would have found this book more realistic if it had contained a few stories to contrast with the main characters, to show that not every sexual relationship goes along as smoothly as theirs generally does, and also if it dealt a little more realistically with the emotional impact that can happen when one person changes their mind about "forever".
It's still an OK book to read, but aside from the physical descriptions of what happens between the couple, I didn't find it particularly realistic when I first read it in the early 1980s, and I don't find it that realistic now. I did hear that the author has added a section to the book addressing AIDS (a disease which emerged some years after the book was published), and I think that's a good addition although I have not read it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
