Throwback Thursday: Forever

Throwback Thursday is a new feature at Reading Lark. We'll still be doing some Book Boyfriend Posts and Book BFF Posts on Thursdays as well, but the Larks wanted a little variety on Thursdays. Throwback Thursday will allow us to celebrate some of the reads we loved way back when...

Forever

By: Judy Blume
Published: 1983 

 

I'm not sure whose copy of Forever I read, but it wasn't mine. It was a friend's copy with a worn spine and corners, from being shoved into backpacks, purses, and under covers and textbooks whenever parents were around...and I was probably the 10th girl to read it. This one isn't like Judy Blume's usual fare, it's filled with intense love and fairly explicit sex, which was the attraction for a high school girl and the reason Forever was forbidden at my house. It was a book I felt like I shouldn't be reading, but loved every minute of my taboo and forbidden time with it before I passed it on to another friend. 

What's amazing is the story still stands up, even 30 years after it was published (the updated cover looks like a Sarah Dessen cover). I have students who read this every year and love it. And they're usually impressed, then appalled, ;) that their teacher (OMG! Ewww!) has read it.  

Summary via Goodreads

Katherine and Michael meet at a New Year's Eve party. They're attracted to each other, they grow to love each other. And once they've decided their love is forever, they make love.

It's the beginning of an intense and exclusive relationship, with a future all planned. Until Katherine's parents insist that she and Michael put their love to the test with a summer apart...

"Forever" is written for an older age group than Judy Blume's other novels for children. It caused a storm of controversy when it was first published because of its explicit sexual content.

It was a book ahead of its time - and remains, after thirty years in print, a teenage best-seller. America's No. 1 children's author has written some of the best books of our time about real-life issues - family stress and pressures, what happens when your parents divorce, the problems of growing up and sexual awakening, bereavement - with insight, sensitivity and honesty.

The response of readers all around the world continues to make her one of the best-loved writers ever published.