The Truth About Forever

By: Sarah Dessen

Narrated by: Rebecca Soler

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

From the award-winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Rest of the Story comes a powerful novel about loss, love, and moving on.

Nothing is going as planned for Macy this summer.

Not the job at Wish Catering, and definitely not Wes.

But Macy soon discovers that the things you expect least are sometimes the things you need most.

"Dessen gracefully balances comedy with tragedy and introduces a complex heroine worth getting to know." (Publishers Weekly)

©2006 Sarah Dessen (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

my favorite author, my favorite book

i absolutely adore this book. it makes me laugh and cry no matter how many times i read it.

My favorite

I love Sarah Dessen and was so happy to find this new recording of my favorite book of hers. I love the characters, the story, and the themes. Rebecca Soler was fabulous and was able to portray Macy as I always saw her when I was younger. Absolutely fantastic. Will recommend whole-heartedly.

Good

A good book for Teens going by through all the hard times they have to go through.
I liked the characters! I picked this book because I enjoy listening to the narrator Rebecca Soler.
It was a good choice ,now I am listening to another by this author. Its called The rest of the Story.
Its not nearly as good as this book.

Nostalgia

This was my favorite Sarah Dessen book when I was in middle school. It’s still as great as I remember.

Reading this again as an adult...

I read this in High School sometime between 2006 and 2010. It was one of the first books to help me start to deal with my feelings about my mom's death and other things that had happened to me instead of running away from them. It took me another 10+ years before I really started to figure it out and honestly, I'm still working on it.

It had been so long since I had read this, that it was almost like reading for the first time, especially listening/reading it from an adult perspective and reading it with my daughter, who is not quite a teen yet.

It struck me how the comic relief really balances out the story and keeps it from getting too heavy. this really helps to carry the themes of friendship, love, loss, control, allowing yourself to be happy even when it scares you, seeing things from the perspective of your loved ones even when it feels like they are hurting you. All of these are things that young people deal with and would benefit from learning and working through them at a young age.

The many different perspectives she uses, the way she helps you feel all the feelings and gives opportunities for belly laughs along the way really keeps the subject matter from getting too overwhelming.

I know it meant so much to me to hear my daughter belly laughing in the backseat of the car on the way to her swim class. I love that something that meant so much to me and held so much pain for me as a kid is just a "soap opera for kids" according to her, yet is still teaching her good lessons. I look forward to reading it with her again as a teenager and seeing how her perspective changes.

I don't remember the name of the narrator but she really brought the story to life for me. I have a hard time paying attention long enough to get into books but she drew me in right away, and her impressions of the characters were impressive and convincing!

The story kept me going.

I had a little trouble with the reader at first but, as usual, Ms Dessen drew me in immediately so I soldiered on listening. Very quickly afterward, I fell into things & found I was quite mistaken about Ms Soler. She was excellent!! I find that each time I read/listen to a Dessen work, I find it gets better & better. I pick up on more nuance & realize the fabric of the Dessen universe is more intricate than I originally thought. I enjoy the cross overs from the various books (but would LOVE to learn what caused Jason to go from the self involved asshole he is here to the insightful, empathic dropout be becomes in "What Happened...."). Well worth a peek!

A book about love nah about death

The love story seemed to me to be a small part of the bigger story grieving a loss. I grieved by not grieving much like her mother. A great story on how different people grieve and how there is only one wrong way to do it. Is to ignore it. Love the book.

Still my favorite author

One of my favorites by Sarah Dessen! Listening as an adult let's me appreciate it in a new way than I had when I was younger.

New Dessen Fan

My first Sarah Dessen read did not disappoint. Loved the story, character development and interaction with one another. I was completely invested in this story. The different perspectives on grief was well portrayed.

Great book, bad performer

This book was one of my favorites as a teenager and I was so excited to find it on here, but this narrator was so so difficult to listen to. I found the tone and inflections of her voice very irritating and her vocal choices made Macy into WAY more of a brat than I had ever read her as. This is an unfortunate example of a narrator detracting from an otherwise wonderful story.