A review by captainoliimar
The Forevers by Chris Whitaker

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The premise of this book is great, I was so excited to read it. But unfortunately it didn't quite live up to the hype. It was kind of confusing and the main character kind of just drifts around and seems like she's just an observer for a while. There were quite a lot of characters and it was very hard to keep track of who was who. For example,
when they revealed Oliver Sweeny's name in the file at the police station, I could not remember who he was at all
. I also found the transitions between scenes a bit confusing and it would sometimes take me a moment to realise that we weren't in the same place or talking to the same person anymore. The book also touches on pretty much every trigger warning there is, and while I appreciate that the author may have wanted to represent as many people as possible, it made it difficult to dive into any one issue with any real depth.

I did like the way the ending was written, it felt like it had had a bit more care put into it than the rest of the book, and it did make me tear up a little
especially the scene with the grandma
. The adults behaviour also felt frustrating but not unrealistic
given how people refused and still refuse to acknowledge the existence of COVID-19 and it's very obvious effects on all of us
. It seems rather obvious to me that this is a book that was written in response to the frustration a lot of us felt about the way that COVID-19 has been handled

Overall, I feel like this book could have been really great, it just needed a couple more rounds of editing. I'm interested in seeing where this author is in a couple years and maybe I'll pick up another one of his books then.
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