{"id":3640,"date":"2025-07-18T17:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3640\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T17:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:01:15","slug":"review-judy-blumes-forever-hits-netflix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3640\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Judy Blume\u2019s \u2018Forever\u2026\u2019 Hits Netflix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Forever\u2026 was published in 1975, it generated immediate controversy over its explicit sexual content. Today is no different\u2014in 2025, the book again made waves as one of <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7283728\/forever-judy-blume-book-ban-netflix\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"1\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">13 books banned from every Utah public school<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I was one of those kids whose parents forbid them from reading the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.purewow.com\/entertainment\/twilight-director-calls-jenna-ortega-jacob-elordi-perfect-bella-and-edward\" target=\"_blank\" data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Twilight<\/a>, so Forever\u2026 never even made it across my desk. But, reading it as an adult, I will say that if I ever had children, I would allow them to read it. (At the right time, of course.)<\/p>\n<p>The story follows two high schoolers falling in love for the first time, and everything that comes with it. Though the material is explicit, it\u2019s not, importantly, gratuitous, and deftly explores the concept of consent and safe sex in the bloom of first (and young) love. I\u2019ve read many books, but couldn\u2019t recall, before Forever\u2026, one that talked about these foundations, or displayed respectful communication, in a way that felt authentic and not cringe-worthy. I have an inkling that if more high schoolers read Forever\u2026, they\u2019d have a better understanding of appropriate ways to explore sexuality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Forever\u2026 was published in 1975, it generated immediate controversy over its explicit sexual content. Today is no&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-3640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}