Forever for a Year
By Lucinda Dyer,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Freshman first-love tale has some insight, lots of sex.

A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this book.
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Based on 2 parent reviews
No
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Too much S-E-X!
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What's the Story?
For both Carrie and Trevor, freshman year is a new beginning: Carrie is reinventing herself as Carolina, and Trevor has just moved to town and is entering a new school. They meet on the first day and, despite pressure from friends who are against the relationship, fall in love and soon begin to explore and then act on their sexual feelings for each other. The relationship portrayed in FOREVER FOR A YEAR is filled with the usual teenage "loves me, loves me not" angst, and both teens are coping as best they can with parents whose marriages are often on shaky ground, as they weather almost every storm that seems destined to pull them apart.
Is It Any Good?
This book has a split personality: One side shows a sweet, realistic look at first love, and the other offers up enough sex to verge on soft porn. On the positive side, the voices of Trevor and Carolina are distinctive as they chronicle their relationship in alternating chapters that offer insight into how differently boys and girls act and react to love and sex. And both Carolina and Trevor are likable and relatable as they stumble, fall, and find their way through freshman year. Ultimately, it's a story that could have offered a window into how teens explore a first serious relationship but has been hijacked by too much sex.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the realities of teens having sex. What are the emotional consequences of having a sexual relationship?
How realistic do you think Carolina and Trevor's relationship is for high school freshmen?
Several characters cheat in their relationships, both innocently and not at all innocently. Would you forgive someone who cheated on you?
Book Details
- Author: B.T. Gottfred
- Genre: Coming of Age
- Topics: Friendship, High School
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc.
- Publication date: July 31, 2015
- Number of pages: 427
- Available on: Nook, Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: August 2, 2021
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