Forever
by Maggie Stiefvater
★★★★
**There are no spoilers for this book, but if you haven’t read the rest of the series, I would skip this review**
Forever was one of those perfect quick weekend reads. I needed a break from Bleak House and Moby Dick and this was the perfect solution.
I thought it was a good ending to the series. It’s not one of those addictive books that will make me want to reread the whole series again, but it provided good closure for all the characters.
I liked how in the final book we look at some of the moral issues in the characters’ lives. Flawed parents are a running theme throughout the series, but this book forces us to examine the issue a little more. Sam realizes that his idol, Beck, who raised him, may not be the perfect person he thinks he is. Beck’s action are not motivated purely by selflessness, they sometimes come from feelings of grief or anger, which means they might be bad decisions. Grace and Isabel also had to come to terms with their parents. Even if the parents aren’t making good choices for their kids, they are still acting out of some kind of love and their kids try to understand that.
Cole and Isabel’s relationship is interesting because there are no clear-cut boundaries. They are attracted to each other, but they also realize they aren’t really healthy for each other. Cole is a fascinating character because he’s incredibly self-destructive throughout the series. Then in this book he begins to make some good choices, but it’s almost impossible for everyone else to see that because of the way he acts.
If you’ve read the first two books, definitely finish the series. It’s not a favorite of mine, but it was a great palette cleanser when I need a break from the chunksters.
“I spent so much time alone with Sam that other people’s reactions to him and us together always seemed to come as a shock. It was hard to imagine how one guy could elicit so many different responses from other people. It was like there were forty different versions of Sam. I’d always assumed that everyone took me at face value, but now I wondered – were there forty different versions of Grace out there, too?”
5 comments:
My daughter read the series and liked it well enough. I had every intent of listening to the audios, but heard that the narrator wasn't very good. And that did it for me. Just so I'm not totally out of it, I probably do need to make a stab at it at some point.
Sandy - I read them because of all the blogger hype (almost always a mistake). They aren't bad, but I just don't love them. They are books that I would have been fine if I'd never read them.
I read the first one and couldn't go on.
I can't even say what I really think about this series since I only read the first one. After hearing so many awesome things about it, I thought it'd be a good read for me, but I just thought it was full of cliches.
Good writing though, but other than that, I didn't really enjoy it sadly. I'm glad you did enjoy them though!
BookQuoter - I read the first 2 on audio back-to-back. I definitely don't think I would have finished the series if I hadn't done it that way.
Jillian - They weren't the best. It was enough to make we want to finish the series, but it's not one I'd recommend to everyone.
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