Monday 2 June 2014

Book | Friends Forever by Danielle Steele

Image and video hosting by TinyPicFriends Forever by Danielle Steele
Published By: Bantam Press
Published On: July 1, 2012
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 380
Format: Paperback
Rating: 4

Five children meet on their first day of school, one bright September morning. Drawn by that magical spark of connection that happens to the young, Gabby, Billy, Izzie, Andy and Sean - each bursting with their own personality, all with strikingly different looks and diverse talents - soon become an inseparable group, known to everyone else as the Big Five. As they grow up, their seemingly perfect lives are altered by families falling apart, unfortunate mistakes, and losses and victories great and small. Throughout their adolescence, the five are able to turn back to their trusted group to regain their footing and steady their course. But as they emerge from school, their futures seem neither safe nor clear. As their lives separate, the challenges and risks they face become greater, the losses sharper, and it becomes much harder to know the right path to choose. But despite life's ups and downs, together they are able to face up to challenges with the help of the important bonds forged all those years ago. And the five realise just how lucky they are to treasure valuable friendships that last a lifetime.

Friends Forever follows five best friends – Billy, Sean, Gabby, Izzie and Andy – who met on their first day of school. As the Big Five grow up, they are each faced with the struggles and trials life throws at them and must learn to support each other as they continue through their journey in life.

Heart-warming story of love and friendship this is not. More like a heart-breaking story of tragedy and loss. This book broke my heart and had me in tears on more than one occasion. This is not the book to read if you are looking for a ‘pick-me-up’ kind of story.

This book was so confusing to begin with. There are a lot of characters in this book and the majority of the main characters are introduced in the first chapter. As you can imagine, this was very confusing. It took me about four or five chapters before I could keep track of every character and remember their storyline but after that it was fine.

It is predictable yet shocking all at once. Within the first few chapters I had guessed a lot of the big events but I really did not mind, I just thought it was going to be an easy read. However, when the main events began to happen, it was not at all as I had expected. Despite having predicted what was going to happen, I was in shock every time those things did happen. I am struggling to explain it; I think it is something you need to read the book to understand.

I loved the characters. I loved all of the Big Five, as well as their siblings, parents (well maybe not Larry) and everyone else in their lives. I love the bond between the Big Five, the family bonds, even the bonds between the friends and parents. Everything about the characters was just great.

Overall, I really liked this book. I picked it up expecting it to be something completely different and I did not expect to like it. However, I was very pleasantly surprised, despite the confusing start, and would highly recommend this book.

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