Title: This Could Be Forever
Author: Ebony LaDelle
Genres: Contemporary/Romance
Pages: 385
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Review Copy: ARC by publisher
Availability: Available Now
Summary: Deja’s got a plan. The first in her large family to go to college, she wants to study chemistry and sell natural skin care products, like the ones she already creates from plants grown on her family’s North Carolina farm. It all starts with the Onward Bound summer program at the University of Maryland, the summer before school officially starts.
Raja’s got a dream. His traditional Nepali parents want him to study engineering and settle down in an arranged marriage, but his passion is art, and he wants to open his own tattoo parlor one day. In the meantime, he’s apprenticing at a tattoo shop in College Park, Maryland.
When Deja walks into the shop where Raja’s working, they both start crushing hard—over the course of the summer, they fall more and more deeply for one another. But the closer they get and the more their lives entwine, the more they find that dating someone who doesn’t match your parents’ expectations is harder than they ever imagined.
Can they bridge the divide between the vision their families have for their futures and the lives—and love—that are starting to feel like destiny?
Review: Working with teenagers and dealing with their “relationship issues” I know that they often believe that their middle/high school love will be the one they are with the rest of their lives, even though the statistics indicate the opposite. It doesn’t help that a good swoony romance must end with a HEA, therefore YA romance often times encourages this belief (not that there is anything wrong with that). LaDelle’s latest novel really explores this belief when the reality of finding your “soul mate” comes crashing with the reality of what “forever” could actually be like.
Deja and Raja are new college freshman, though they are still in high school when they meet. The connection is instant and they enjoy one perfect day, before they return to their lives. Fast forward three months when Deja attends a summer program and the first person she seeks out after a bad day is Raja. Sparks still fly and their love story moves at the sweetest pace with the shy flirting and the sweet first few dates. However, as Deja and Raja fall deeper into love and wonder if they are meant to be, they realize that their families could be a block to their HEA. Both come from loving families, but expectations are different from each. Deja’s family supports her move to the big city, but miss her terribly, especially her father who struggles with having his daughter so far away. Raja’s family is less accepting of his choices, specifically his father, who doesn’t approve of Raja moving out and expects him, when he’s ready, to agree to an arranged marriage. Raja has completely different plans and actually hides a lot from his family such as his tattoos. In an interesting bit where Raja has Deja over to meet his “sister cousins”, he wears a long sleeve shirt covering his tattoo sleeves. At that point Deja fully understands how much of himself Raja is hiding from his family, thus furthering their connection to each other. And that is where the strength of their budding relationship and the question of forever really comes into play in the story because they are able to fully be themselves with each other and truly ponder the question of forever with each other.
Their love story is not a “Romeo and Juliet” love at first sight then drama type of story, but a deep attraction where their love grows slowly with each passing day as they learn more about each other. As a lover of romance novels, this was a fun and refreshing read because both characters complete a lot of introspection on what they want for their lives and what they want from their relationships. Deja and Raja are at crossroads, so to speak, as they are truly beginning their adult lives and their decision to explore their relationship is part of the process of learning to be an adult. And that aspect of the novel is what makes it so good. To me this is the definition of “young adult” as Deja and Raja learn how to stand on their own and stand up for each other, stand up for love, and what it means to be an adult. It was so different from many YA romances and I absolutely loved it.