Sort of Forever
"Remember me, okay?"
Nana lifted the bottle of sparkling cider. "To us," she said. "Best friends forever!"
"Forever," Cady echoed.
With extraordinary honesty and grace, Sally Warner explores one of the toughest tests of a friendship, and reveals that even in the hardest and most painful moments, there is laughter and there is love.
Ever since Cady was little, Nana has been there for her. Whether Cady was stuck at the top of a slide or stranded in the middle of an ice-skating rink, it was always Nana to the rescue. She never let Cady down.
But the summer before seventh grade, it looks as if that might happen. Strong, funny, feisty Nana has cancer, a disease that threatens to take away her humor, her strength, and, ultimately, her life. And as Cady watches her friend change, she's not sure she knows, or wants to knew, this new Nana-until she realizes that now it is Nana who needs to be rescued.
Sally Warner began writing Sort of Forever a year after losing her best friend to cancer. "I don't see this as a sad book, though," she says. "I think it's an honest look at the weird mix of feelings friends feel when confronted with an impossible situation. Heartbreak, boredom -- even humor can fill a single afternoon.
"This is my first book about Pasadena, which is where I've lived for a long time," she continues, "but I was on the east coast when I began work. I think that distance helped me remember important things about my town," she says. "If you have ever moved, see what you can make yourself remember about the old place -- and then write it down!"
An ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults
A 1999 Best Book for the Teen Age
A New York Library Best Book of 1998
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Cover art by Kyrsten Brooker
"Readers will share the rush of emotions in this. . . heartbreaking and satisfying story."
Booklist
"The talented Warner has previously explored the themes of friendship and change, but never more powerfully of affectingly than in this piercing novel."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Warner offers unforgettable characters, plenty of laughs amid the tears, and tops it off with a poignant, perfect ending."
Buffalo News
"A substantive and realistic look at a difficult situation."
School Library Journal