The danger of revisiting a loved book from your youth and re-reading it through adult eyes. Forever was the book that, as a teenager, we were titillated by because the main character has sex (OMG) and that didn’t happen in the books we read. My memory was that it was romantic, that Katherine and Michael had found love, her family didn’t get it and her friends were jealous. My take now is very different. Michael is controlling and manipulative, Katherine’s friends and family were trying to help her but were also fearful of pushing her away. Blume is a master author, and I’m certain that she intended much of this. Plus, it very much reflects the views of the time (it was written in 1975). Reading it in 2022, with laws for coercive behaviour being introduced in Australia, it reads very differently.
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