Bella Levine
Mr. Rich
English 10
17 January 2012
Blume, Judy. Forever. New York: Simon & Shuster Children's Publishing, 1975.

Many teenage girls believe that their relationship with a boy in high school will last forever. This only happens about 1% of the time. There are very few people that end up marrying their “high school sweetheart”. In Judy Blume’s book, Forever, a boy and a girl are determined that their relationship is going to last forever. Katherine, a senior and a virgin, meets Michael, her dream boy, at a friend’s party. Michael has everything that she wants in a boy, the smarts, good looks, and a great personality. After that faithful day, the two become inseparable and end up falling madly in love. Throughout the story, the couple spends days and days together but once summer comes around, they realize that they want different things in the future. Katherine and Michael are forced to choose if they should stay together or go their separate ways.
Katherine has never been involved with a boy until she met Michael. Within a short period of time the two lovers know everything about each other. They never spend time apart, and soon Katherine starts to lose relationships with her other friends. This does not matter to her because she knows that she has Michael and they will be together “forever”! I think that Katherine is not very smart because she falls for Michael so fast. They start dating only a week after they meet. It seems a little too soon to me, especially because they just met. While reading the book, I thought to myself that eventually Michael would just leave Katherine after he got what he wanted from her. I was proved wrong at the end, when I read that Katherine was the one that ended their relationship. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me. I don’t know. Maybe if Michael and I had been together for the summer this never would have happened…” (Blume 183). While Katherine was at camp, she had a lot of time to really think about what she really wanted in life and for her future. Michael was not in the picture. It finally hit her that there was no way that even if she got into the same college as him, they would stay together for the rest of their lives.
This novel was written in the 80s. I was quite surprised when I found that out because I did not know that this type of situation would happen that long ago. I was so surprised by the fact that it was written 30 years ago that I researched it. Forever is on the banned books list. It is said that it was “inappropriate for teenagers to read.” I think that it is very good for kids 13 and up to read, because it really shows you what can happen in relationships and teenagers really need to know these facts.
I really learned a lot from this book. It showed me that most likely high school relationships would not last “forever” and to always keep your eyes open. Relationships are good to have in high school, but you have to be careful and make sure that you are not getting to involved. In this novel, Judy Blume really pulls the reader in and makes it seem like the reader is a part of Katherine and Michael’s relationship. I found myself getting into the book so much that I would not be able to put it down because I wanted to know what would happen next. This book was one of my favorites of all time; everything about it I liked and I could read it over and over again.