Now and Forever by Susane Colasanti

•  Release Date: May 20, 2014

•  Pages: 273

•  Genre: Contemporary YA

•  Publisher: Viking Juvenile (Penguin)

So, I’m starting to realize I may have a new book kryptoniteand it’s the what I like to call “I’m with the band” stories.  These are the books were either a friend, parent, or the love interest is a rock star. I haven’t read many of them, but if I see one it instantly goes on to my TBR pile. I’m not sure why I’m so interested in this.  Maybe its because my guilty pleasure movie is the Disney Channel Original Movie Starstruck or that Sarah Dessen’s This Lullaby was my favorite book as a teen. Either way, pair this knowledge with the fact that I’ve been meaning to read Susane Colasanti for years and Now and Forever was the perfect choice.

High school senior Sterling is just one month into her relationship with classmate Ethan Cross and she feels like the luckiest girl in the world. They have the same sense of humor, are both passionate about their interests and intend to make senior year there best year ever. But when Ethan’s band is discovered and he becomes a teen idol, Sterling isn’t sure their relationship will withstand the pressure of the spotlight.

 I don’t want to say this book disappointed me because  Now and Forever wasn’t terrible or anything it was just kind of… meh. It lacked the characterization and depth that really invest me in a contemporary YA. I kept reading because the low stakes linear storytelling meant that I could read a chapter or two of on my phone while I was waiting in a long line. I read 90% of this book on my phone.

What really interested me was the culture around popstar celebrity. I’ve always found the phenomenon of young male singers becoming idols seemingly overnight interesting. I’ve seen documentaries and watched YouTube videos about Justin Bieber and One Direction fans of the world and I think Colasanti captured the “bandom” aspect well.

There is a section where Sterling eavesdrops on a group of Ethan fans bragging to each other about how big of fans they are and Sterling remarks on how they all want to take ownership of Ethan. I see that all the time in any fandom and even have thought it myself (*cough* Darren Criss, Starkid *cough*). I also liked the way she portrayed the online fans of Ethan’s as not just being jealous and hating Sterling, a lot of them start to “ship” them and make online collages and stuff.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think this is the typical Colasanti book. I looked at her website and her other novels seem more issue-based than this one. I may try some of her earlier stuff.

Nitpick to end all nitpicks: the title refers to a song in the book, but the song in the book doesn’t have an ampersand and neither does the book title when you look up it’s ISBN so why is there an ampersand on the cover ??? It makes it so hard to search for this book in the library.