Who: Sarah DessenWhat: The Truth about Forever
When: April 6th, 2006
Why: Hype
How: Contest win
Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is looking forward to a
long, boring summer. Her boyfriend is going away. She's stuck with a
dull-as-dishwater job at the library. And she'll spend all of her free time
studying for the SATs or grieving silently with her mother over her father's
recent unexpected death. But everything changes when Macy is corralled into
helping out at one of her mother's open house events, and she meets the chaotic
Wish Catering crew. Before long, Macy joins the Wish team. She loves everything
about, the work and the people. But the best thing about Wish is Wes—artistic,
insightful, and understanding Wes—who gets Macy to look at life in a whole new
way, and really start living it.
I had heard a lot about this book, and Sarah Dessen in general. But yet I had never picked up one of her books. Why? As i've mentioned before, i'm not much of a contemporary nut. Probably because I wasn't picking up the right ones. This was a book that there's no concrete reason why I liked it, it was just a beautifully emotional book to read.
The plot wasn't something epicly amazing and full of complex inter webbed lives and difficulties or nothing like that. But I think simplicity helps a lot in contemporary fiction. I mean, how many of us have lives such as in Paranormal Romance novels? Yes, we wish. Contemporary is life, and we want it to me something we can relate it. I related to Macy
Macy is something that's instantly likeable, at least to me. She was dedicating to keeping her life perfect and absolutely non-wild. She has an obnoxiously perfect straight-A boyfriend (which is urgh) and a mother who is always working plus a sister who moved. Her boyfriend is luckily absent for most of the book, but she takes up his job as Informant of all things library. And she sticks to it, even though his co-workers torment he, which I really admired. Though I would've wanted her to smack both of them, I liked the way she handled things.
The Truth about Forever being a character-driven story, loved all the characters. Macy's dad never actually appears in the story because, you know, he's dead. But with the way Sarah describes him and all the stories from Macy's past, even he was a very well-rounded character. I loved how Sarah made Wes and Macy get to know each other, by playing Truth. Truth is where you have to ask a question and the other person has to answer it truthfully, or they lose. You find out a lot about both of them for it. Also, Wes is saaaaaa-woon.
Sarah writes the type of books that "Chick-Lit" readers LOVE, with wonderful characters and swoon-worthy loves, but with a much sadder-in-a-good-way undertone.
My rating: AWESOMESAUCE. Also, if you like Sarah Dessen, you should read Sarah Ockler. Just saying.
Happy Reading!
-Harmony B.
