From the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Once and for All Expect the unexpected. Macy’s got her whole summer carefully planned. But her plans didn’t include a job at Wish Catering. And they certainly didn’t include Wes. But Macy soon discovers that the things you expect least are sometimes the things you need most. “Dessen gracefully balances comedy with tragedy … most.
“Dessen gracefully balances comedy with tragedy and introduces a complex heroine worth getting to know.” —Publishers Weekly
Sarah Dessen is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her contributions to YA literature, as well as the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award.
Books by Sarah Dessen:
That Summer
Someone Like You
Keeping the Moon
Dreamland
This Lullaby
The Truth About Forever
Just Listen
Lock and Key
Along for the Ride
What Happened to Goodbye
The Moon and More
Saint Anything
Once and for All
more
After the death of her father, Macy retreated into studies and work, building a shell to hide behind to deal with his death. Similarly, her mother began to pick up more projects and refused to talk about what happened the day he died. But things are about to change this Summer. Macy makes the last-minute decision to work for the catering company Wish. Instead of meticulous schedules and predictable outcomes, working for Wish is chaotic and a bit…fun. Meeting new friends and breaking free of the shell she built for herself, Macy is going to realize that it is ok to let go and just be herself.
The Truth About Forever has a slow start. Sarah Dessen focused on building up Macy’s relationship with her father to establish an emotional impact on his death, but this could have been done in fewer words. It took too long to reach the main storyline. Macy has enough lingering guilt and flashbacks of her father’s death to make the reader understand her perspective without the extra at the beginning of the story.
Macy is not a strong female lead. She has a lot of development to accomplish in this novel, and it is a struggle the entire way for her to grow. There were quite a few moments where she let people walk over her and this didn’t sit well with me. However, I do understand that this was the character and the emotions I felt over her choices were most likely the ones Sarah Dessen was aiming for.
The story was pretty linear, nothing that was too unpredictable. I thought the characters were believable and the situations they were in realistic, but the ending left too much out in the open. I didn’t feel like it came full circle and there was no sense of closure. Not a book I would read again.
You can never go wrong with a Sarah Dessen Romance! Dessen writes funny but magical love stories that make you want to fall in love.
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I am a huge Sarah Dessen fan—her books were a true comfort to me during high school, and I have continued reading and loving her work ever since! The Truth About Forever is definitely one of my favorites, and the theme of letting go of perfection is really resonating with me these days. (You should see the disastrous state of my house; my 16-month-old daughter’s favorite game is to pull items down off shelves and dressers and scatter everything onto the floor.) While I love this book’s slow-building romance between Macy and Wes, perhaps even more satisfying is the way that Macy comes to terms with her grief, moves past her perfectionism, and takes control of her own future.
An old story with characters so unique you won’t be able to put this down. This is my first Dessen novel but definitely not my last. To me, this is a girly book. Any girl, young or old will love.
Trying to decide if this is for you? Read my review at https://cyndiezahner.com/2020/04/06/the-truth-about-forever/ I loved this book.
Loved this book! Easily among my top favorites by Sarah Dessen; she always has a way of making you fall in love with her characters. In this one it was Macy and Wes, but the supporting characters are just as memorable, especially Kristy, Monica, Bert and Delia. I adored Macy and Wes (Sa-wooon!! He’s easily among my favorite book boyfriends no question); I loved their friendship and budding romance. I think it was awesome that Wes loved to make these angelic sculptures out of pieces of old scrap from the junkyard; how super cool is that?!
The only reason I didn’t give this book five stars was that I was hoping at the end [Macy’s mother would change her mind and continue to allow her daughter to work at Wish catering but other than that it was still a wonderful, sweet story!
I absolutely fell in love with this book and the author. She has the characters really come alive as people that the audience is able to relate to. The romance in it is also the kind of romance every girl looks for in a guy. This book got me started to be interested in reading.
My first big read back when I was in high school! I adore Sarah Dessen! I have all her novels! This one started it all!