Forever is the Worst Long Time by Camille Pagán

(Spoilers Ahead)

I grabbed Forever is the Worst Long Time from my local library after reading another book by this same author (I'm Fine and Neither Are You).  I enjoyed her storytelling so much and this book had great reviews and was available at the library so I dove right in.

Let me start by saying, this book was beautifully written. This was one of those books that I wished I had on my kindle or that I owned myself so I could highlight and underline the passages that just took my breath away.  In situations like this, I have to resort to modern technology.  That is, taking a picture of a page with one of my fingers pointing to the line of text I want to remember.  My phone gathers a lot of these pictures as an avid library book reader.

This is one of those books I will definitely recommend to people.  It is a love story that calls you on your own bullshit about the excuses you make in life - especially relating to your own love story. (Come to think of it, I think this is a trend for this author because I felt like her other book I read did the same thing!)

The book opens with James meeting Lou - and he introduces the reader saying "the first time I met your mother..."  I had to read a little more to figure out what I was reading. What you figure out is this book is James writing a story to his child - whose mother is Lou.  The confusion comes in when you also immediately meet Rob, James' best friend, who announces he just got engaged to Lou.

So you already realize there is a love story here.  James' somehow ends up with his best friend's fiance.  So let's fly through this...  Rob and Lou get married, James is best man.  James is in love with Lou but never lets on, never makes a pass, nothing.  But he does ultimately end a long term relationship with another woman (Kathryn) who wanted to marry him and have kids, because he is pining for Lou, whom he sees to be the perfect woman.

Rob and Lou are having problems, fighting a lot.  Rob is in NY finance which means he works basically 24/7 and that puts a strain on his relationship with Lou.  He also starts to have some feelings for his boss, a woman who gets his work schedule, and he suddenly feels like he has so much more in common with her than with his wife.  Lou thinks Rob is cheating, or at least thinking about cheating and so she leaves him.  Lou and James meet up for dinner one night, which turns into drinks, which turns into a one night stand.  James is terrified of what this will do to his friendship with Rob but at the same time excited trying to figure out he and Lou can make this work.  Lou has different intentions.  She says it was a mistake and that they can't do this to Rob.  Then about 8 weeks later, James picks Lou up from the airport when she is coming to visit and she drops the bomb... she is pregnant.  With James' child.  (Just to keep things straight, James is NOT her husband, it's his best friend.  This is bad.)

Ultimately they decide to keep the baby, Rob finds out and is furious and cuts them all out of his life.  Lou and James end up raising their daughter Emerson together in Michigan.  They live together but are only friends.  They never have any romantic relationship again after that one night stand.

A few things become clear along the way.  Lou never stopped loving Rob.  James realizes that perfect isn't just never fighting and that love can take a lot of different forms.  He ends up in a relationship with Nora, a former student turned lawyer and they are just fantastic together.

The themes in this book are diverse and equally just as powerful.  Here are the biggest ones:

• Love: What does love look like? Is there only one person for us?  How love can really just get under your skin and eat away at you from the inside out.  
• Friendship: We learn a lot about Rob and James and their childhood.  We learn about how each of their parents stepped in at different times to parent children that weren't there.
• Family: On that same note, we hear the theme over and over that "it takes a village to raise a child."  That includes James and Rob's childhood as well as James and Lou's daughter's childhood.
• Death:  This book definitely has some gut punches on death.  I cried with James and Rob lost their childhood friend (that guy with the Polish last name) and of course I cried when James was diagnosed with ALS and faced with his own mortality.  We also hear a lot about how James lost his mother when he was just finishing college and how her death affected him.  
• Writing: Oh how this book made me want to pick up a pen and write!  I am also re-listening to another favorite book (Firefly Lane) where one of the main characters is also chasing an un-acheived dream of becoming a writer. So it was coming at me from all directions. But James is an aspiring writer and Lou is a published poet.  Their love of writing and reading made me love these characters even more.

It's hard to say this had a "happy" ending because, it was really sad.  But at the same time, this is a book that made you FEEL and for, I am happy.  Here are a few quotes I took time to note:

• "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." - James' friend and mentor, Pascal, when talking to James's relationship with Kathryn.  James reflects on this later when he realizes Kathryn may have been good for him all along (before he meets Nora).  
• "If you find yourself in an effortless position in life ... enjoy it, but don't stop there. When something comes to you easily, it may leave that same way, and you'll be left wondering if it was ever there at all."  - James writing to his daughter as he contemplates his relationship with Kathryn and how "easy" it was.  
• "Loss is an incredible stroke of luck... For loss carries with it two truths: that you have loved, and hat you yourself have had the good fortune to live a little longer."  - The closing sentences of the book as James writes his last words to his daughter.
• "This story ends with loss, I'm only on the first chapter and I can tell...."  "Don't they all?"  - The opening sentences of the book, a dialogue between James and Lou when they first meet and Lou is cracking the pages on Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety.

A few other spoilers so I can remember the ending, ending (not just the James' dying ending):

Rob and Lou start dating again at the end and James gets to see that.  James even tells Rob that maybe he and Lou can have another kid and give Emerson a sibling.  This is disclosed in the last entry in the book, dated September 2015.  Then on the last page, you a see an epitaph for James showing he passed on September 23, 2016 and that their was a baby boy named James Bell Logan (Logan is Rob's last name) born on August 30, 2016.  So this wonderful author was so thoughtful in those last few words to leave you with knowing that Rob and Lou had a baby, which they named after James, and which James got to meet before he passed.  For that, I would say, is a happy ending.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐