The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is looking forward to a long, boring summer. Her boyfriend is going away. She's stuck with a dull-as-dishwater job at the library. And she'll spend all of her free time studying for the SATs or grieving silently with her mother over her father's recent unexpected death. But everything changes when Macy is corralled into helping out at one of her mother's open house events, and she meets the chaotic Wish Catering crew. Before long, Macy joins the Wish team. She loves everything about the work and the people. But the best thing about Wish is Wes—artistic, insightful, and understanding Wes—who gets Macy to look at life in a whole new way, and really start living it.

First Line: "Jason was going to Brain Camp."

Another good book by Sarah Dessen, with an interesting plot and subplots, quirky characters, a lesson learned and romance.
Macy watched her father die. She and her mother now tiptoe around the reality of his death. Her mom immerses herself in work, ignoring Macy. And Macy stays with a boyfriend who demands nothing and gives the same in return.
Then the boyfriend goes to summer camp and Macy starts a job with a disorganized catering company, where she meets the new love interest. Macy begins to change and it bothers her a little bit and her mother a lot. The same, comfortable routine is shifting which might mean opening up to pain and grief.
This book is an easy read. I did put it down a couple of times because of the cursing that seemed out of place. Also, there were a few pages I skimmed.

Rating: PG 14
L: sprinkled throughout; "F" bombs
V: No
S: No



25% test (p. 94):
""It's a huge hole," she conceded, reaching for the mayonnaise. "But that's kind of the point. I mean, I don't want to fix it because to me, it's not broken. It's just here, and I work around it. It's the same reason I refuse to trade in my car, even though, for some reason, the A/C won't work when I have the radio on. I just choose: music, or cold air. It's not that big of a deal."
"The A/C won't work when the radio is on?" I asked. That's so weird."
"I know." She pulled out three more slices of bread, putting mayonnaise, then lettuce, on them assembly-line style. "On a bigger scale, it's the reason that I won't hire a partner to help me with the catering, even though it's been chaos on wheels with Wish gone. Yes, things are sort of disorganized. And sure, it would be nice to not feel like we're close to disaster every second."
I started another sandwich,listening.
"But everything was always smooth and perfect," she continued. you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy t when things go right. I know you think I'm a flake. Everyone does."
"I don't," I assured her, but she shook her head, not believing me.
"It's okay. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've caught Wes out there with someone from the gravel place, secretly trying to fill that hole." She put another row of bread down. "And Pete, my husband, he's tried twice to lure me to the car dealership to trade in my old thing for a new car. And as far as the business, well...I don't know. They leave me alone on that. Because of Wish. Which is so funny, because if she was..."