roads? where we’re going, we don’t need roads. are you guys ready to go back to the future? or more accurately, look back to a YA classic? cos if my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour… you’re gonna see some serious shit.
BOOK REPORT for forever… by judy blume
bff charm: yay
swoonworthy scale: 8
talky talk: 2 legit 2 quit
bonus factors: banned 4 life, kickass gram
relationship status: forever
[quick side note about back to the future -- caution, it will make you feel OOOOLD while it blows yr mind: so i realized the other day that the 1st movie went from 1985 30 yrs back in the past to 1955. and in 5 YEARS they could make THE SAME MOVIE, but go back THIRTY YEARS TO 1985! HOLY FLUX CAPACITOR, batman]
i like to call this photo junior prom 1983: 6 months later OR juno, you just WISH you looked this rad. my husband and i had an 80s party to go to (OBVS this is not how i normally dress, cos a denim mini and leggings should NEVER be seen on a preggo lady in normal circumstances) and we totally looked like we were still in high school. so i started thinking, what would i be reading if this WAS 1983? and the answer is totally obvious: forever … by judy blume. y’all, this book is EPIC and a classic. it came out in 1975 and it’s one of the most banned (and celebrated) YA books ever (in fact, it was so controversial that in the 1975 edition, the author bio says it’s blume’s first novel for adults. um, yeah right, here at FYA we like to call that COVER YOUR ASS).
y’all, s.e. hinton might be credited with the first YA book ever (the outsiders), and while she’s TOTALLY gold, when i think of the queen mother of YA i think of judy blume. no other author wrote so much and so accurately about the angst-ridden thoughts of teenage girls (will our braces get stuck together when we kiss?!? will i EVER need a bra? [sorry, hon, not if you're me] and most importantly, should we do IT?). i mean, she set the STAGE for meg cabot, sarah dessen and sara zarr among many others.
ok, on with it.
the deal: this book is pretty simple. as you can tell from the cover of the 1975 ed., it’s all about S-E-X. kath meets michael at a new year’s eve party and they start dating, making out and michael’s totally hot to get in kath’s pants. she’s totes interested, but it’s a huge decision and she seems to be the only one who realizes it. sex, love and forever — heavy shizz, man.
bff charm: yay
kath gets my bff charm — she’s so much like so many teenage girls trying to figure out if sex is a big deal, WHY it’s a big deal and what are the consequences (besides STDs and pregnancy, obvs). she’s also a good girl. she’s sweet to her little sister, she tries hard in school, she likes her parents (her parents are totally rad, by the way), she wants to be independent and make her own mistakes. she doesn’t whine (YAY!) OR want babies (MAJOR bonus — what’s the DEAL with that in YA lit lately?), and she’s honest with herself. plus, at the end, you just know she’s going to be awesome forever.
swoonworthy scale: 8
what? only an 8? for a book that’s all about DOING IT, a book so much about S-E-X that it has a rumpled, unmade BED on the front cover? y’all, that’s because michael is DOUCHY MCDOUCHERTON, aka a high school boy. and while we swoon over high school boys a lot around this joint, none of them are really very much like most high school boys. but michael totally is — i could NOT see what the attraction was, and all he wanted to do was get laid (AND HE NAMED HIS PENIS. he named it RALPH. there aren’t big enough or bold enough capital letters to express my horror at this character flaw). cher horowitz def. had it right when she didn’t even waste her time thinking about high school boys (plus, um, elton or josh? like, DUH!). BUT there’s lots of sexy business in this book, and it’s written pretty explicitly, and (without spoilers for those of you who’ve never experienced this book) there’s a development at the end that has serious panty-melting potential.
talky talk: 2 legit 2 quit
i don’t really think i need to explain or justify this, cos judy blume INVENTED wonderfully accurate teen-speak. all the angst and thoughts and confusion and jitters of first love and gaining experience and going farther than you’ve gone before are there, and so dead on.
bonus factor: banned 4 life
forever is number 7 on the american library association’s most challenged books from 1990-1999. and that’s just ONE DECADE. judy blume is one of the most banned authors EVER. so of course the book must be awesome, right? at least if you’re thinking like a 15-yr-old. and what better way to combat censorship than to totally ignore it and read this book?
bonus factor: kickass gram
kath’s grandmother is a lawyer and planned parenthood activist and helps her make informed decisions about sex and is totally non-judgmental and supportive without being crazy and reckless.
casting call:
shailene woodley as katherine
i don’t know much about her, but i bet she can play sweet and confused pretty well.
jared padalecki as michael
if anyone can play douchy mcdoucherton, it’s jared “douchbag” padalecki
relationship status: forever
i don’t think this book will EVER get old. i mean, it’s as awesome 35 years later as i’m sure it was when it was first published — it still gets read, it still causes controversy, it still makes girls blush and feel not so alone. for a really great article about it and how relevant it still is, go here.
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
SHUT YOUR MOUTH ABOUT MY SAMMY!
…but yeah.
I love this book so much. There was a really good article in this month’s Bitch Magazine about Blume and the whole censorship issue that totally rocked.
Good call on the Ralph issue, I totally can’t hear that name at all anymore without throwing up in my mouth a little, and my uncle’s name is Ralph, soooo….. also Ralph is another word for throwing up. Coincidence? No way.
danielle, sorry — i was thinking padalecki as dean in gilmore girls. that role ruined him for me in anything else!
talya, that’s SUPER unfortunate about yr uncle’s name. dude, i GAGGED when i read one of the letters michael wrote kath, where he said “p.s. ralph misses you, too.” GAG.
i re-read this book a few years ago and was really, REALLY amazed by blume’s openness towards birth control and planned parenthood. like, would this book even be published *today*? unfortunately, i’m not so sure.
my only gripe with the book is that blume spends so much time on the soapbox, she kind of neglects the heart of the story. i never felt super connected to kath, and while i appreciated the universality of her angst, it felt more like i was reading a brochure than a novel. obvs i believe this book is EXTREMELY important, and i’m so so so thankful that judy blume had the guts to do it, but it’s definitely not one of my personal favorites (i think that award goes to “just as long as we’re together” JEREMY DRAGON HOLLA AT ME).
and p.s. meghan, you are the CUTEST PREGNANT LADY EVS!!!!! seriously, do not be afraid to rock the leg warmers.
yeah, the characters weren’t as developed as they are in her later books, and i think if she re-wrote the book it’d probably turn out a little differently. the tone and characterization does seem to fit with other YA books from the same time period, though. and you’re right — i don’t think it’d get published today. in fact, all the newer editions have way different covers even — things like lockets, or hearts. one has tangled legs/feet of people making out, but they’re fully clothed down to the shoes. i thought that was really interesting.
What Danielle said!
Long time reader (since this blog first launched actually), first time commenter. Not sure why I haven’t before, lazy I guess.
I wrote a paper on censorship in college and decided to read this book (for RESEARCH, naturally!) and I could NOT DEAL (in a good way). This book is so AWKWARD, SO REAL, so HIGH SCHOOL. Grats to Ms. Blume on being able to make someone of my generation blush while reading.
And seriously…it’s been years since I read it, but I still CANNOT hear the name Ralph without cringing. *shutter*
UGH RALPH. Do boys REALLY want us to automatically equate “my cat’s breath tastes like cat food” with their DANGLEY BITS? Okay, that’s not blume’s fault, since The Simpsons wasn’t on back then. (Which is sort of unbelievable since THAT SHOW HAS BEEN ON FOREVER.)
I remember reading this book waaaay back in the day and feeling so . . . happy, I guess, that something like this was available to read. I mean, when your SCHOOL refuses to give sex ed and your CHURCH has to do it instead (holla for being awesome, St John’s United Methodist Church!), it is pretty mind-blowing to have this stuff in a BOOK. Mind-blowing and awesome!!!
Wow. Ashamedly, I’ve never read this book! I will remedy that! I didn’t ignore it intentionally, i just never heard about it! It was probBly banned at my library.
Oh geez. I wrote my thesis on this book: “The Watershed Effects of Judy Blume’s Forever on the the Uses of Sex in Young Adult Fiction for Girls.” You summed up all 50+ pages it with your opening.
This book is horrific in so many ways (has anyone else ever read the press release that Blume had to finally put out so that people would start naming their kids Ralph again?!?) and it probably wouldn’t be published today, but there are so many other books dealing with sex that DEFINITELY would never have been published if Forever hadn’t been published first.
Also, walk into any public library and grab a copy. Drop it spine down and watch it open right up to the sexy bits. Even though it’s dated it still is clearly needed.
hi megan! yay for commenting! and i totally hear you on the cringing.
erin, HA. i totally have this really weird mental image of michael pretending his penis can talk, and it’s saying “my cat’s breath smells like cat food” in that ralph voice. ralph, i do NOT choo-choo-choose you! either of you!
jenny, don’t feel bad — i actually hadn’t read this book either until last weekend!
lawral, i bet the research for that thesis was way fun. and so much of princess mia’s turmoil dating michael when he was in college (remember the hotel room freakout before he left for japan?) reminded me of this book (well, honestly in the other direction, since i read the princess diaries later). thank god for judy blume! she made so much awesomeness possible with HER awesomeness.
lawral, I request, nay, I INSIST that you share your thesis with us. I am serious. My honors thesis* was on the SCANCORIOUS MUSCLE in ORANGUTANS. Okay? SO OBVS YOURS IS COOLER.
Oh! Mia and Michael! Oh Mia, forget about stupid Fly Girl Judith Gershner!! Remember how good Michael’s neck smells and DO IT with him!
* weirdly I ended up writing two more senior theses in my “junk” final semester, one on the history of racism in anthropology and one about the problems with unilateral no-fault divorce. HEY EVERYONE GUESS WHAT MY MAJOR WAS.
but erin, you got to use the word SCANCORIOUS in yr thesis. and since i was a history major, not anthro, i have NO IDEA what that is, but it totally sounds like a female rapper name. except spelled sKankorious. and that’s awesome.
i was a slacker and only had one major and no honors thesis (for my school, one major was like one-way ticket to slacksville. everyone had some crazy double or triple threat, especially if the main major was something “easy” like history. which is so not easy, dammit).
OMG. we totally need to create a new post category that’s like, all intellectual pants, and then we can invite super smart people to write highly academic posts about YA! YES! and then our blog will be incredibly intelligent! at least occasionally!
i am actually serious you guys. we can launch it with lawral’s thesis!! or maybe just like, the synopsis. PLUS a cocktail recipe to go with it, obvs.
My senior thesis was about the subversive feminism in Jane Austen, which would kinda work for this site! Because you ladies talk about Jane Austen a lot, even if she’s not actually YA. Which is why I love you!
For REALS, Posh! This is an idea that MUST happen!
erin – my thesis did not qualify as an honors thesis as it didn’t present any field research. unfortunately sitting around in coffee shops reading YA genre fiction for most of my senior year didn’t count. also, TWO extra theses? you are totally my kind of masochist.
i haven’t looked at my own thesis in years (i turned that sucker in and never looked back), but i can dust it off and try to boil it down to something readable if you ladies are interested. of course, you FYAers should pony up some of your college-age intellect as well!
YES! Lawral! YOU MUST!
The scancorious muscle is an extra muscle in orangutans which allows them to have quadramanal locomotion. Really. The entire 40 page paper can be boiled down to that statement. But it is awesome.
I hereby declare that we MUST add an Intellectual Pants section to FYA!!! Ladies (and gentlemen), brush off those college term papers!!
This book holds a special place in my heart. My mom bought me this book having no idea what it was when I was 12. She still has no idea.