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Forever... by Judy Blume
01:17:12
You never forget your first. Rebecca and Jeff revisit Judy Blume's classic young adult novel about first love, losing your virginity, and the thrills and fears of growing up.
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- [00:01]
A
This season of Zero to well Read is presented by Thriftbooks.com where you can find new used books, more than 19 million of them. 19 million in count, including games, music and more. I'm gonna shout out something I found just now on thriftbooks.com it's the Judy Blume Teen Collection. It's a box set. It includes Are youe There God? It's Me, Margaret Deenie Forever. Then Again, maybe I Won't and Tiger Eyes sticker price, full retail new a 58.99. You get it right now. New for 40, 75. That's a good deal for a teen in your life. If you're looking for Forever itself, there are 32 editions available right now. The lowest priced one I see is a paperback in very good condition for five bucks. But there's all kinds of editions here. There have been so many covers, you can kind of pick the one you like the best. Thanks so much to thriftbooks.com for sponsoring this season of zero to well read. Hey everybody. Jeff here. Just a quick word before we get into the regular episode. Listen, I don't know what's going with Mike. I don't sound that good. I think it was coming in the wrong thing. I'm not sure. Did the best I could to clean it up. It is what it is this time. So sorry. Hope you will still stick around for our discussion of Forever by Judy Blume, but just wanted to give a heads up. Okay, here we go. Let's get on with the show. You're listening to Zero to. Well, read a podcast with everything you need to know about the books you wish you'd read. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.
- [01:26]
B
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky. Today we are talking about First Love, the First Time, and the Facts of Life. It's Judy Blume's Forever, a very important book from my childhood and many of yours I know as you're listening. And our colleague Kelly Jensen, who is our resident expert on young adult books and on book banning and censorship, is going to be joining us for office hours over on the Patreon to talk about the book's history and Judy Blume's legacy and of course, the halo of censorship and banning that has surrounded this book for the last 50 years. So be sure to join us on the Patreon and get those office hours.
- [02:00]
A
If this is your first time joining us today, we do a couple things here. We talk about what the book is about. We talk about its history. We have read this book recently to discuss. We Talk about that reading experience, like what the message is. We talk about sentences, we talk about legacy and all the things that goes on to it. We get really nice comments from folks on Spotify and Apple podcasts, but one is that we like to see the most is like education, entertainment. The book club always wanted to join. It's like going back to school in the very best way. Those are the reactions we're going for. That sounds like something great for you. Welcome and we look forward to you joining us. There's a back catalog now. We've been doing this not quite six months, Rebecca, but almost so that we now have a couple dozen books for you to get into. Sometimes we're talking about things that are in the news for whatever reason. Or anniversary with Judy Blume. You could talk about Forever Forever and Judy Blum Forever. This is our first real foray into the work of Judy Blume. Not our first YA title. Our first real YA title was Twilight. And it's interesting to think of them as being mirrors or versions or funhouse mirrors of each other, talking about adolescent sexuality and desire. And one is metaphorized within an INFJ's life and beyond, metaphorized into unending life, really, when you think about who the characters are there. Yes. And then Judy Blume, which is very quotidian. This is on the ground, maybe literally on the ground. And what surface we should be on the ground when we're on the ground, rolling around, using. I thought that section was pretty entertaining, but also very logistical and very real. And I think that Rebecca is one of, if not the enduring legacy of Judy Blume is taking these fraught subjects, life experiences and deep frauding them, deflowering them, and sort of showing people how they actually can go. And that maybe isn't as scary. And these things are real and it's natural. And here's how you might navigate them. And here's some fictional representation of sexuality and desire and loss and being in a relationship, but also dealing with your parents. When I think about Judy Blume, that's what I think about. Like this is the aunt you wish you had sort of telling you how things are, but that also it's going to be okay.
- [04:13]
B
Yes. An adult who acknowledges with real honesty and frankness what it is to be a teenager. What it is or a kid in many of her books, what it is to be coming of age and both
- [04:24]
A
at the same time. Right. I mean, that's part of what they're about. Yes. Yeah.
- [04:27]
B
And having all of the questions and fears and the excitement and all of those things mixed up about the all the new experiences that you're going to have. Whether it's your first period in Are youe There God? It's Me, Margaret. Whether it's dealing with bullying. In the book Blubber and a few of the others, she's got a book about grief, and this is her book about teenagers having sex for the first time. But it's more than that. Like Forever gets tossed off as this is the Judy Blume teen sex book, but it's really these young people learning how to navigate a relationship, how to talk to each other, how to think about what their commitments are to each other. And as the title Forever gives us, what does Forever or commitment in a Young Person's Relationship actually mean? How realistic is that? And how do you sort of ride the waves of change as your life evolves? Especially like our main characters in this book graduate from high school and their time together comes to one form of end. But that doesn't have to be the end of their personal stories, and it doesn't negate the experience that they had with each other. And so like young adult books exist like this all over the place now. But Judy Blume opened the door like she is really the OG of young adult literature. It didn't exist as a category at the time that she started writing.
- [05:44]
A
So we're going to get into more of that, specifically about Forever here in a second. You can find the show notes to sign up for our free newsletter that's in the podcast. Catch her right there. You can become a member to get early ad freed episodes and bonus content depending on the level you pick there. But the newsletter that Vanessa Diaz, our managing editor, Book Riot, is curating writing for us every week to go along, every episode is free and it's quite great. I have to say.
- [06:08]
B
It's really fun.
- [06:09]
A
I don't know why I have to say it, because it's Vanessa, but it is great. And there's things that we've talked about, like pull quotes, resources we've used, and then she finds things on her own. So it's really a great companion piece, but a pretty good standalone. Read about these books too. So if you want to forward along to a friend who likes books but has included in to the Zero to well Read train, that can be a good point of entree. We're going to have a mailbag episode pretty soon. People ask us questions and we answer them. Shoot us an email. 0 to well read can be questions for that, but also comments, other things. And we'll put them together. Sometimes they get shared in the newsletter as Vanessa has put them together. I send stuff along for her that might be a good fit and find us there if you have a moment to rate and review the show. Really just rate the show. Just hit those five stars and Spotify and Apple. Super easy to do and we can keep chugging along here. Rebecca all right, so this is Judy Blume's teen sex book, but believe it or not, it has a plot. And the plot is.
- [07:09]
B
It does have a plot. Our main character is Catherine. She's a senior in high school and on New Year's Eve she meets a boy named Michael. They fall for each other. Catherine has had other boyfriends, but Michael is her first love and he will become the first boy that she has sex with. The novel captures their key moments in their relationship over the course of senior year. So we see Catherine go to Planned Parenthood to get birth control. This is 1975, so it's just two years after Roe v. Wade. Their first few times doing it don't go super great. And we see that. We see the fun and the excitement that they share as they get the hang of things. And their plan is to be together forever. This is the thing they say to each other. Sort of a reinforced promise, like a forever forever. And Michael even gets it engraved on a locket that he gives to her. But after graduation, they each go away to summer jobs. Kathy develops feelings for a fellow counselor at the camp where she's working. And she has to wrestle with what does that say about her love from Michael, about their relationship? And what does forever actually mean when you're only 18 and all of life is still in front of you? The book has been a rite of passage for generations of readers, continues to be a touchstone work about coming of age. I mean, this one is one of like a real treat. If you've never read this, if you're teen and you've never read this, there are probably, you know, better more recent books about that will more closely mirror your experience. But if you've just never read this for exposure to the book that opened the door to other books having these kinds of conversations. It's really pretty wonderful.
- [08:46]
A
I think also it's worth saying it's also quite short. You can do it in one sitting. Like I think 200 pages of a quite small format paperback. I did on ebook and it was only 176 iPad pages. So if you can convert that in your head out there, you know, I did this in one sitting. It took me about four, I don't know, 80, 90 minutes, an hour and a half, something like that. Goes down a lot of these pretty big font. Yeah, big font. And then also lots of dialogue that goes quickly. So it is not a huge commitment. Even as they're trying to figure out how huge of a commitment to make to each other at the same time, the importance here, again, we're looking at this as 50 years old. So it's not quite, you know, enshrouded in the midst of importance like, you know, like Tolkien or something like that. But it's also not so recent that a lot of people remember it, because I think a lot of people, the most impactful reader were probably. They were 15 when this came out in 1975. So they're 60ish at this point now. And they're, you know, they're having their own experiences at the same time. But it's continued to find readers. And in finding those readers, one of the reasons, I don't know if there's a Streisand effect going on here or not, Rebecca, but it continually, routinely among the most banned books year in, year out. Kelly, like we said, is going to join us, talk about the specifics of those. And that has kept it fresh because the idea that this moment in a person's life is still fresh when you're figuring out your own sexuality, you're engaging in sexuality with other people. And I don't know that it's any more or less fraught than it was. I think it's differently fraught, but it remains fraught because we don't talk about it. And it's very difficult and it's awkward and it's your first time and you're trying to match your desires and your willingness with other people. And so that, I don't know, that may just be a truth of human life for the foreseeable future. And if that's the case, then this book is going to be relevant in that way.
- [10:42]
B
Yeah, it's been controversial for 50 years, and so that does keep it in the news. But there were multiple generations of readers. I read this in the mid to late 90s, and this was still the book you read to get a frank conversation about teens having sex. There weren't a lot of people at least successfully following in Judy Blume's footsteps yet. So there's that. And even if the details of the presentation of it, which we'll get into, are not totally relevant for today's teenagers, like the kids in this book don't have cell phones. The Internet is not a thing. The mechanics of being a person, figuring out relationships and engaging with sex for the first time and trying to figure out how to talk to each other about it and managing your own expectations and your desires and all of those things are just permanently relevant. I watched a wonderful documentary called Judy Bloom Forever that came out in 2023. And Jason Reynolds, who's a current young adult author, says in there that he doesn't think Judy Blume was setting out to write something timeless. She set out to write something timely, and she did it so well that it became timeless.
- [11:48]
A
This is how these things generally happen, right?
- [11:50]
B
Yes.
- [11:50]
A
Unless you're writing, I don't know, fantasy or sci fi, which is outside of time. The only way to write a timeless work is to be specific and write it from the position in which you find yourself in a particular moment. The origin story here is fascinating. Her daughter was a teenager at the time of Bloom's writing this and was reading books about people having sex and consuming cultural documents about this. And terrible stuff then happens to those people. And her daughter says, could we get a book where all this happens and then nothing terrible happens to them? Sort of Romeo and Juliet being the, er, case of this particular kind of. And Judy Bloom was like, yes, I should write that. And she wrote that. So Bloom then writing specifically into teenage interests and desires, but also innocence and ignorance of things that matter to them, is not the worst prompt for a writing life is to write into the blank spots where the unsaid need saying,
- [12:49]
B
yeah, and this, the book is sex positive. Decades before we had the term. She gives Catherine agency and autonomy. Catherine pays attention to what feels good to her, to what she likes, to what makes sex start feeling more satisfying with Michael. And I think it's really authentic to what it's like to be a teenager and to not have the experience or the skill to handle things smoothly. Nobody in this book has therapy speak. No, they're not performing their virtue for each other. And they bumble through some things. Michael pressures Catherine a little bit. She says no, a lot more than, I think we want teenagers to have to say no today. But they. They navigate it like each of them is clear about what they want and what they're comfortable with. And there's tension there that I think is very real and honest about the teenage experience. And it also presents sex and desire as natural. It validates young people's feelings, the excitement and the fear and the anxiety, and it captures that open and honest. Communication is hard, and it's Necessary. And it gives the readers a model for that that I think is still radical.
- [13:56]
A
It does feel that way. I agree with you.
- [13:59]
B
Right. Like how direct they are about what's happening between them and how it's working. There are adults who never succeed in having this level of openness conversation with each other about sex.
- [14:11]
A
Yeah. And not for nothing, they end up having a great time for a little while. They do, you know, and they do. It ends, you know, if not amicably. It's not like messy, you know. Michael gives her a parting shot because he's angry about, you know, he's, he's been having sex with every tree in North Carolina. Essentially anything he could get his, his mitts on. But like she kind of understands as such, as you said, when you're hurt and angry. But then Catherine says at one point in a letter to him, like, I'm, I don't feel bad about this. It came to an end. But I'm still going to feel very fondly about this. And that that something can end and that doesn't mean it was bad. I think is actually still extremely relevant for many walks of life and especially
- [14:51]
B
in the conversation about teenage sexuality. Like I came up in the, you know, mid to late 90s when purity culture was all over conversations about teenage sexuality. I have sat in a youth group meeting where someone is holding an orange and being like, for every person you have sex with before you're married, like, take a piece of the orange and throw it away. And this like sad, shriveled, three pieces of orange is all you have left to offer your partner. And Judy Blume is writing in direct, almost protest to that, that the sex that you have before you are with the person you're going to spend your life with, if indeed you find someone that you're going to spend your whole life with is not a mistake stake. And it's not a disaster and it's not something that you have to regret that the first time and the first love can be meaningful and important just because they are their own forms of experience. And I think that's still radical today. Just, I mean it's just so straightforward about everything. Like, and non judgmental. There's birth control, there's condoms. There's a conversation about abortion. There's a character who's struggling with his sexual identity. Somebody has mental illness. Someone has the death of a loved one.
- [16:02]
A
Somebody short, which you must have identified with. You're like, oh, short representation, Erica.
- [16:09]
B
Judy Blume's doing it all. And you know, like more than 4 million copies have been sold per Simon and Schuster, which honestly, that seems low to me over 50 years. Except that this can also happen to the first book that cracks open a conversation. That this conversation has evolved and. And writers have continued to pick it up and bring it forward.
- [16:29]
A
I have a thought about that number, Rebecca. I meant to put in the notes. I'm sorry. I wonder if it's depressed kids books, YA books and the books that get read by generation per generation. I think in terms of the number of individual readings, probably it's really low because of libraries in school libraries and public libraries and pass down and teacher to student and student to student and sister to sister. This is not like. I think adult novels can work a little bit differently where people buy them and they have them. But remember too, why the teens and tweens don't have that much money, if they have any money at all. I don't know. I think there's a. Of the books that we've read, I'm guessing, well, things in public domain that around for 300 years, that's probably the number one draft pick. But the number, the number two draft picked in the book sales being misrepresenting. Misrepresenting how many readings there are. I think probably kids books and YA books are way, way up there.
- [17:26]
B
That's a great point. Plus, this was the kind of book that like a friend group got one copy or somebody's older sister had a copy and that one copy got passed around between everybody and that. Like there were, you know, whispers about which pages you could find the sex scenes on and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So I think that probably also contributed to it just to capture big picture importance of the book again, it was named by Time as one of the best YA books of all time in 2021, generations of readers still refer to it. And then just to touch briefly on the banning history before Kelly takes us into depth with that in office hours, it was number seven on the ALA. That's the American Library Association's 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books. From 1990 to 2000, it was the second most banned and challenged book as recently as 2005. Number 16 on most frequently banned and challenged from 2009 or from 2000 to 2009. And currently it's banned in all public schools in Utah. It's on Florida's unofficial list of banned books. And it is the 28th most banned book across the United States since 2021. So in the last five years, I
- [18:36]
A
have a hot take within this one, Rebecca, I didn't put it here because I want to hit you with it here again, if your point, if your goal is to prevent kids from having sex, and I think that's a bad goal, or at least a fraught one, let's put it this way, because people are going to do things, you should ban this book in Utah because this is a book, if someone reads this, they are going to be more likely to have sex and that's okay. And that's good because it helps them and they're going to do it anyway.
- [19:04]
B
Yeah, I don't think this book is going to make them more likely to have sex, but it will make them more likely to have satisfying, safer sex. And we want that.
- [19:11]
A
Yeah, I mean, or this is sex positive and for kids under some age, I don't know what age, they're okay in Utah with people having sex, maybe not until marriage, you get married young, but you can't have sex out of woodlock. I'm not really sure. But if what you're afraid of is people having sex and enjoying it in a way that you don't like, this book says that it's possible and enjoyable and there's nothing wrong with it. So I, you know, I was in a conversation recently where the best argument for the power of books is to see what books are banned and that this book is banned so frequently. And then once you read it, it's definitely, you know, there are parts that have sex in it and it's explicit, it's not pornographic or by any stretch of the imagination, but it's like describing what's happening and it's presented in a positive or at least sort of neutral to positive kind of way that is a real threat to the orange purity culture you're talking about that nothing bad happens. And Katherine and Michael are just as if not better equipped to be in sustaining long term healthy relationships after they figure this first encounter out than they were before. And I think that's really important.
- [20:22]
B
I don't know if your ebook edition had it, but the paperback opens with a note from Judy Blum that says this book came out in 1975. And so Catherine goes to Planned Parenthood to get birth control, but if she were to do that today, they would also have a conversation with her about HIV and AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. And here's a number you can call and a website you can go to to get information about the these things. And like that page alone makes people want to ban this book.
- [20:48]
A
The only thing that may hinder that is that Michael, we learned the first time he had sex, he gets gonorrhea, like right off the bat. That was a tough beat for Michael. That certainly, that's certainly the messaging I was hearing as a teenage boy in the 90s. Like you're just gonna get the clap first time.
- [21:04]
B
The clap put Michael off of sex for a little while there. But he recovers. They bounce back. And condoms are a thing
- [21:15]
C
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- [22:38]
A
Jackson Hewitt has a Great tax prep deal. $149 or less. Missing out is like ignoring the check engine light in your car. You regret. Seriously, the price is only 149 or less, no matter how complicated. So don't wait like when you get a password expires today alert or you're shopping online and there's only one item left. It's like your taxes are in the cart. Just complete the purchase. Hurry. This deal for one 49 or less is like your phone at 1%. It's about to power down. Limited time offer for new clients on federal returns. Participating locations only. Terms@jacksonville.com 149Let's talk about Bloom for a second. I was more of a Beverly Cleary kid. I sort of went from Beverly Cleary to adult books, but I definitely did some Judy Blume and everyone really does at some point. If you're a reader of any kind and heralding in the YA market as we know it is not the, you know, not the worst thing to hang on your writer hall of Fame plaque. And if anyone has that, it's Bloom. Her own history is extremely interesting. She was raised in New Jersey. She graduated from NYU in 1961. She met her eventual husband there. She becomes a stay at home mom and is basically like Betty Draper with an English degree and a pen. And she starts writing to fill her days and becomes over time, I think because she's not writing for a career or for advancement necessarily, she's writing for herself that she writes something that no one else really would. And she's talking about things like masturbation and periods and birthdays, control and death. And it's like from. From most of her. Many of her books were challenged right away and she just sort of got used to that. And in reading interviews with her about her now, like she seems like a pretty cool customer. Judy Plume like this sucks. But I'm going to keep going and it just kind of goes to show and I'm just going to keep going. Like she doesn't seem very. She seems frustrated, but she doesn't seem thwarted. And I guess that must have been required of her in 1961, 1970, 1975 to write the kinds of books she was writing. If you were worried about what people thought about you too much, you weren't going to write the kind of book she did. One of the hundred most influential people in the world by time in 2023. And I don't know her later work well enough to know like what was the last or most recent book that became a phenomenon of some kind or did very well or became part of the conversation. I've long since A debt of that and 90 million copies sold worldwide. Her 1969 debut. This is good trivia. I. I would have gotten this wrong. You have this in notes here. The one in the middle is the Green Kangaroo. What is that about? Did you look? Is that a kids book?
- [25:17]
B
Like I have no idea. It's a kid's book. She was doing like middle grade. She was doing picture books and middle grade before she really landed in her pocket of doing more young adult. But she's really known for. Are you there God? It's me, Margaret, which is the period book. Blubber, which is the bullying book. A young girl is bullied for being fat. Super Fudge. And then all of the Fudge books which are based loosely on her son and tales of a fourth grade nothing. Many, many more. Then she has four adult novels that include Wifey from 1978 and Summer Sisters from 1998. I think Summer Sisters might really be the last Judy Blume book that kind of made waves. She had a novel in 2015 based on a wild, real event from her childhood where a plane crashed into a New Jersey suburb.
- [26:04]
A
I remember this now, and I read
- [26:06]
B
it in 2015 and was like, okay, this is a novel that Judy Blume wrote. But it's much. It's pretty far outside of, like, this universe of things that she tends to write about or spent most of her career focusing on. Like, she is the signal tween and YA writer for Gen X and millennial readers, because YA just was not a thing. And she was the defining author of those zones of my life, for sure.
- [26:32]
A
Great titler. Are youe There? Got it to me, Margaret Blubber, Supervudge, Tales of Fourth Grade. Nothing. Those are all really, really good titles. Okay, I'm gonna clear out for you here on First Exposure. You do not have to stand in for all people and all tweens and certainly not all women. Except for right now, Rebecca, because I think you have probably, as, I don't know, archetypal of a Judy Blume Forever reading experience as you can possibly have.
- [26:56]
B
Yeah, I think I read this in sixth or seventh grade. I don't remember exactly when, but I had worn out the library's copy of Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. And I heard through the tween grapevine that this one was the book about sex. And, like, I wish that I had a story about, like, squirreling away somebody's big sister's copy of it. I know that I had friends that were hiding their copies of Forever under their Mattresses, but I have no memory of where I acquired it. I probably just checked it out at the library. You know, like, I am from that elder millennial, late Gen X generation of readers whose parents were like, whatever you want to read, we're just happy that you have a book in your hand. My parents did not screen my reading at all. And I remember reading this and being like, oh, my God, like, I'm not ready for that. But it actually seems like maybe it's not as terrifying and potentially deadly as, you know, like, evangelical churches in suburban Kansas City want me to believe. Yeah, it was. It was powerful. I read it a couple more times, and notably, like, one of the unintentional pieces of humor in the book is that Michael names his penis Ralph. And there are, like, conversations with and about Ralph in the text and jokes about do guys name their penises? What would they name them? Like was sort of in the conversation with fellow teenage girls.
- [28:21]
A
From this point on, I will say the loudest no comment that's ever been said by anyone ever to that.
- [28:28]
B
I don't know if our friendship could
- [28:30]
A
survive any form of comment on that. This was my first reading experience of Forever by Judy Blum. I knew of it and what it was about, but I hadn't read it. I did read Certain Super Fudge and Are you There, God? It's Me, Margaret. When I was a kid. I think I have a soft spot for Are youe There God? It's Me, Margaret. I think it's such a beautiful book. Not that this one is bad, but like that one I have a real fondness for. So this is my first time. So we'll get into the reading experience here in a second. Why don't you lead off? You have a great line to start, so I don't want to step on your line here.
- [29:05]
B
I mean my experience of reading it now is that it feels both timeless and very specifically like a relic of its time. Like we don't talk about bodies in the same way that Katherine and her mom talk about bodies. There's a lot more instruction and socialization for kids today about not pressuring your partners. But I also kind of loved that Judy Blume hasn't updated this a million times to fit every social evolution over the last 50 years. Like she's really just let the book stand for itself. I know they've updated Are youe There God? It's Me, Margaret. So that the period products are more representative of today because like there are really old fashioned ones in the original copy of the book. Like where you've got to like connect a pad to a belt and it's
- [29:50]
A
just, it looks like something Sally Field would have to wear in the Flying Nun. Like some really origamic stuff going on.
- [29:56]
B
Yeah, like it's just technology that teens don't encounter today. But the, like the nuts and bolts of Forever are still relevant and relatable. And then you know, again that Jason Reynolds quote from the documentary about how she didn't set out to create something timeless, but she did by creating something timely. Like it's just frank and affirming and nonjudgmental. And this is a radically different version of teens exploring sex than I saw depicted anywhere else growing up in the 90s inside purity culture. And I suspect that it was a radically different version than most people have experienced in our like maybe Gen Z Started getting better representations. But Gen X and Millennial readers, like, this was kind of it.
- [30:39]
A
Yeah, it really was. And I think, too, I'm also glad she didn't update it even, because, like, this, this line between being an instrumental kind of a book that's an instruction manual versus a work of art. You know, one thing we want from art, I think, over time especially, is to preserve the structures of feeling that were in circulation at the time of the writing. Facts and figures will stick around and get captured elsewhere, but interiority and cultural politics and dynamics and stuff about class and gender, those things can get lost to the sands of time easier. I think often now about when Chuck Claussen was talking about when he was writing the 90s. One things he wanted to do was try to capture what it felt like to experience the 90s. And I think that's something that's important and can be a source of its own interest. This is not just the sex book by Judy Blume. This is about her representation of sex in a specific setting. Like, we don't have a lot here about class and religion, but it's situated in its moment. And if you do that correctly. Not correctly is the wrong word. If you do that with some nuance and you do it well, it becomes a source of interest beyond. Right. Like, there's things about the Great Gatsby that are about, like, the wonderful sentences, but also about the time and the place. And those things have moved on, but they become interesting. They become part of history. And I think it's really wonderful that this is not something that we think of, like the owner's manual to a car where you got to update it for the new model. Things are put together a little bit differently. It can work to be an instructional manual, fulfilling without keeping up with the specifics, because the specifics are changing. But I think the underlying thing really isn't in a lot of ways.
- [32:25]
B
Yeah, I think that's right. And that's part of what makes the depiction of their first couple of times so realistic and powerful. Like, it's a premature ejaculation story. Michael comes very quickly the first couple of times, and he's embarrassed and Kathy's disappointed, but he acknowledges it, and she doesn't add to his angst about it. And they keep going forward, and the frustration is real. Like, Judy Blume lets them hold all of these multitudes. Catherine says at one point, I wondered if it would ever work out right between us. And like, a couple of pages later, they have figured it out and everybody's having A great time. But also, like, there are these wonderful letters that they write to each other. Catherine writes to Michael and her family members and her friends from summer camp. And those are so sweet and nostalgic and also really an artifact of the time. Like, I felt a little sad for kids today who have grown up with phones and perpetual contact and have missed out on the experience of, like, truly being away from everyone and of the opportunity to, like, to write them a letter, to tell your story, to have that kind of distance. But it's even inside those. Catherine is very straightforward about what she's thinking and feeling and feeling torn about their connection and what it will mean. But she's honest with herself in a way that I think sets a powerful template throughout the whole story. Like when they meet and nothing has happened yet, but she's all horned up, like, ready to see him. She's telling us, all I could think about was later and being alone with him and. And she owns her desire. She says, when, like, the second time they kissed, like when we kissed again, Michael used his tongue. I wanted him to. And just like that, really clear, simple, this happened. I wanted it to happen, or I wanted this and so I let it happen. Or we engaged some kind of conversation about it is really sophisticated and Bloom presents it in such a grounded way.
- [34:25]
A
Yeah. And there really isn't a moment. And, you know, when we get to notable quotes, the opening sentence sets it up for us. There is no real acknowledgement or, I don't know, having to contend with the large purity, culture, absence idea out there. There's really not a lot of pushing against to, well, we shouldn't, or people say we shouldn't, or this is bad, or I went to church and they told me this was bad. Like, if anything, their parents are trying to. And grandparents who sends a box of literature in one of the more awkward postal examples, exchanges I'm sure anyone's ever had. They are trying to facilitate and, I don't know, direct, but not prevent or forestall or ignore the reality of the situation. I think that is important too, that these are desires that are natural and if not universal, because there's all kinds of experiences. But they're very familiar. And so many people are going to have them. They're going to happen earlier than they know anything of what to do with them or what they are, that to deny them or to vilify them is only going to create pathology later. That's the only thing that's going to happen out of situations like that.
- [35:29]
B
Yeah. And Judy Blume refrains from any kind of value judgment about the sex itself or what kind of sex, or should they, or should they not throughout the whole thing. And I think that's a template for both the teenage characters, but also their parents that like, she does have. Catherine has this grandma who's like doing work for Planned Parenthood and is clearly like a feminist in a way. And she even considers telling her grandma that she has this appointment at Planned Parenthood, but she decides not to just because she wants it to be her own special experience, a private thing. It's not out of it. There's no shame anywhere in this book. And that lets Catherine have a really complete experience of her sexuality, including her own ambition, ambivalence and her hesitation. Like she knows early in the book that, like when they first started dating, she comes home from seeing Michael. She knows that he would have slept with her if she had let it happen. And she says, I'm not sure how I feel about that. And a little later on she says, sometimes I want to so much, but other times I'm afraid. And Bloom captures like there is this internal push pull about sexuality, not just when you're young, but that this is a lifelong thing that we all have to consider. And then she doesn't judge the conditions in which they have sex. Like characters have this conversation about what about love. Well, you don't need love to have sex, but it means more that way and everybody gets to have their own framework for it. So Catherine thinks about being mentally ready, but her friend Erica is like, let's go. And there's another girl who we find out has had many partners and she becomes pregnant. But that's also not a life ending tragedy. It's just sort of here's a rainbow of ways that you might experience sex and let's consider them because you're going to go do it at some point. And so like, let's prepare for what's out there for you.
- [37:19]
A
Yeah, I, you know, my note here is in reading it for the first time, I wasn't super surprised by the content. I guess the, the feel of the reading again, experience felt more reportage, like I don't know what I was expecting. She's very. Bloom is very good about representing and non judgmental, as you say. But it does have a sort of detachment to it. Like there's narrative third, the narrative third person is omniscient, but we don't dwell in when Catherine says, I wasn't sure I wanted to or not. Like it just sort of stops there Like Bloom is saying this is what she was feeling. But we don't get like a bell jar quality or length of like internal monologues and thinking and observations. Like we know what Catherine is thinking and feeling, but we're not really seeing from her eyes in like a grand sort of way. And I think that's interesting because I think it lets people identify with it differently. It makes it feel a little less specific. I think to some degree Catherine's personality on its own, I would have a hard time describing her. Right. Like, what is she like? I have a better sense of what her parents like and what Erica is like and what Artie is like. But she herself, because of the point of view and sort of the limited nature of not limited, but like Bloom just doesn't dwell on her interior. We get representations of it. But this is not a portrait of a young girl named a 17 year old named Catherine having sex for the first time.
- [38:40]
B
Yeah, and I think that's a really important point. And I don't know how much of it was intentional on Bloom's part, but that it's not highly specific about Catherine does make it easier for readers to project themselves into her moment, her experience, to imagine themselves in those kinds of places as well.
- [38:56]
A
Because even to the point of like physical description, I don't. Does she had brown hair? Was she tall? I don't even remember the specifics of stuff like that. We just don't get a lot of it.
- [39:04]
B
No, it's really beside the point.
- [39:06]
A
Okay, Rebecca, time for straight thoughts. There are many here. Oh my God. Most of our straight thoughts have to do with Rebecca dealing with the passage of time in her own life, which I always excited to see how it's going to manifest itself here.
- [39:21]
B
The mom turns 40 at the end of this book and that just killed me.
- [39:26]
A
So that means she would have had Catherine when she's like 22, 23 something.
- [39:30]
B
22. Yeah. I spent a lot of time reading this thinking about poor gay Artie. Artie is.
- [39:37]
A
We haven't talked about the B story here very much, have we, so far?
- [39:40]
B
Yeah, he's in their friend group group. Erica, Catherine's best friend, is trying to date Artie. He's the star of all the school plays. Everybody loves being around him and he is very clearly queer, but has not come to grips with that for himself. Like, there is not a body of young adult literature about how to come.
- [40:03]
A
There's no Judy Blume for Artie. That was my thought. There's no Judy Blume book for Artie. At this point.
- [40:07]
B
And so, like, Erica is trying to help him figure out if he's queer while also hoping that he won't be because she wants to have sex with him.
- [40:15]
A
We do not get those encounters directly narrated. It's interesting to think about how Bloom would have handled Eric and Artie rubbing against each other in various ways to no avail.
- [40:25]
B
Yeah, I just felt bad for Artie.
- [40:28]
A
Yeah, well, I should say too. I mean, he attempts suicide. Like that's a thing that happens in this book. And it is mentioned he survives and he is not, I don't know, exorcised from the book, but he's very much like, there's something else going on here. And Catherine has no language to deal
- [40:46]
B
with it at this point.
- [40:47]
A
She has no way of.
- [40:47]
B
And Bloom is like sort of letting this be a bee story, but you really could do a whole book about Artie and the challenges of being gay as a kid in the 70s. Catherine uses a lot of language about making love and Michael being her lover and them as lovers. And like, I know we're trying to soften language for teen readers, but, like, not even Judy Blume can make me come around to the. The making love and lovers language.
- [41:17]
A
No one can do it. No one can do it.
- [41:19]
B
No one says this. Also, the adults in the book are really meddling.
- [41:24]
A
Oh yeah.
- [41:25]
B
Like, they're just. Everybody's getting into these kids business, trying to control them.
- [41:29]
A
And it works. They send them away for the summer to break Michael, Catherine up. And it works. Bloom is out here giving the wrong message to parents. That's my hot take, is that you get a. In your kid's life and if you send them the right summer camp, you're going to break up with a person you don't like. And in here, I don't even think it's that they don't like them, but they do not want their kids at this stage making life choices based on how they feel about someone at 16 and a half to 17 and a half. That's what they really don't want. And that's. I'm the last person in the world that can give you this advice because I don't want to put too much of my own biography here, but like, I get that. But also controlling your kids life at this point is stupid, but it works. I don't know. I don't know how to feel about that, that it worked here at this particular moment.
- [42:11]
B
Yeah, it's. I mean, I kind of read it as they would have broken up at some point anyway. But their parents hastened it along. But, like, all the adults are so just nosy and meddling and yet permissive too.
- [42:24]
A
Like, yeah, you could. They can sleep over. Like, what? Like, I don't know. Like, that wasn't a thing that was around by, like, 1994. 1994. We could, like, disappear from three days at a friend's house. Like, even then that wasn't something that was really going on.
- [42:35]
B
And then for our ongoing collection of evidence that we used to be smarter, which is a thing we're doing here on zero.
- [42:43]
A
I'm so glad you captured this. I just blew right past this.
- [42:46]
B
Michael and Catherine go on a special date. He had planned a special celebration. First we went to see Candide at the Paper Mill Playhouse.
- [42:55]
A
And this is.
- [42:56]
B
If they're not.
- [42:56]
A
That's the person they were trying to break her up with, the guy who took her to see Candide. What are we doing here?
- [43:03]
B
If there are teenagers going to see Candide on their dates in the year of our Lord 2026, or YA authors writing this into text, I need to know about it, but I do not believe it's going to be.
- [43:16]
A
Yeah, I have a couple. Then I'll go back to yours here real quick. The. The college application process seems awfully drama free from. From contemporary eyes. Like, yeah, I applied to three colleges and maybe one more and I got into Denver and I guess I'm going, whoa, whoa, whoa again. That might tell you about the anxiety levels of certain members of the class, of which I am clearly a member there. I don't know if this is a hot take or a straight thought, but teenage boys would have done very well and would do very well to read this book.
- [43:49]
B
Yes.
- [43:50]
A
And yeah, I don't. That's not instrumental. I don't want to sound creepy, but like, one of the most difficult things of anyone is to try to triangulate your desire with someone you're interested in, who may be interested in you. And that's one thing we see here. They're sort of mismatched from the beginning and what they want and what they're willing to do at what particular moment. But they eventually become aligned. And that is difficult. And those conversations now have a lot to do with consent. Like, that's the word that we use. But so much of it is also who's interested in what and what are you comfortable with, and knowing how to think about what your partner may or may not be feeling and having language and knowing that it's going to be awkward and your counterparty feels Just as if not more awkward than you. It would be a real help to a lot of people to have a better time dating and with their bodies and with their partners. I don't know. My question here. My hot take at the end was like, is there a dude version of this? I don't know what it is. You know, I don't know. The other hot take is like, maybe to do the Stephenie Meyer thing, which is to write it from Michael, a different version from Michael's point of view, same story, like Stephenie Meyer did with Twilight here. And again, this is. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with this book. It's certainly welcome and important to have it from the female character's point of view. But all of the same conditions are present for young men and. Or people that identify differently. But the perspective change would be interesting and I think it would be fruitful and teach the people some things and gives them the ways to feel and think about their own experience. That would be generous. What I'm trying to do is connect this back to your point here about the prevalence and accessibility of pornography in our current culture.
- [45:32]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [45:32]
A
And that's where so many boys, I think, are getting the kind of instruction they would better off beginning from a porn like this to be. To be really put on the nose.
- [45:42]
B
Totally. Yeah. So I was wondering about that as well, about like, how does this land for teenagers today when their expectations are shaped by having access to porn 24 7. And I asked Kelly, our colleague, if. If there's been a version of. Of that or like, of course, we don't know if Judy Blum ever thought about updating it for teens that are so exposed to porn. But Kelly said Jason Reynolds's novel 24 Seconds from Now, that came out a few years ago, does some of this and it is contemporary and has a lot of the boys perspective. So that might be a version of it, but that's maybe the. It's both the like, sweetest thing about this, that they, their expectations and their hopes are kind of just internally generated or from things that they've heard from their friends, like that your first time will be kind of awkward. They don't have all these. These images in their heads of how this is supposed to go, but that's certainly not the situation that teenagers grow up in today. I totally agree. I think that straight teenage boys would do really well to read this book and, and you know, like, there's a whole class of contemporary, like, sex writing around this. Like, one of the things that Michael and Catherine land on without Judy Blume putting a pin on it. Is that like for foreplay is important and there are entire books about that now for straight men who are trying to navigate sex with straight women that like that just kind of really direct, instructional, validating conversation would be especially potent in contrast to the lessons and images of porn today.
- [47:18]
A
And the instructional pieces is certainly important. But I guess this will go to my next straight thought in but the narrativization and dramatization of those moments I think does something that even a straight touch this person for this long in this sequence and you're going to get the result that you want is different. Right? Because I would just watch the most recent episode of the Pit and spoiler alert for the people that haven't. And there is a sequence in that episode that walks the viewer through the process of rape evidence collections and intake. In the emergency room. A woman has been sexually assaulted and she comes in and they show you the process, at least in this particular hospital and jurisdiction of what that all is entails. And it is extremely informative and educational. Unless you have some reason to go encounter that by yourself. Like what does that actually look like? But as important or like differently important for a work of art is to suggest how those things might feel, what it might be like to experience them from multiple angles, to see them. What does it mean for that person? What does that mean for the person dealing with that situation too? So it gets outside of like educational politics and cultural politics and sort of like textbook like here's what happens. But art can dramatize those structures of feeling that then give you some structure on which to hang your own feelings and experiences when and if those things happen or how you engage with them in your life and they're differently and clearly different pieces of human life. But that the art is doing something similar I thought was pretty interesting to think about. Like there's a version of it that's like a thousand word description of the thing, but it's meaningfully different, categorically different. To do it through art and representation and feeling in human relationship too. You know, so many times in this book, and this is true of the larger Bloom corpus, something that feels so loaded and scary happens and it turns out not to be that big of a deal and scary and final. Like it's important and it matters, but it is not the life ending, you know, hell sending calamity that you might be afraid of or might be told. It is from various corners of cultural life. You know, losing your virginity Even going through labor. Sybil says that wasn't that big deal. You sort of huff and puff and they give you some gas and the baby pops. I was like, whoa. Anyway, also, labor was different in the same gas. Then I don't think you're getting the gas. Speaking of Betty Draper, you're not getting gas. And then even suicide attempts where it's present. And it's certainly important, but it's not taboo. Right. Like, it should be included. It should be discussed. It should be mentioned. Even if Artie doesn't get the full shrift we might like. And a current model, his story is there and he is not swept under the rug. And his difficulty is not swept under the rug. So they matter, but they're not harbingers of end times. Survivability seems something that Bloom seems intent on communicating to young people. And I think that's really important and super useful and validating.
- [50:20]
B
Yeah. That like, you will go through this. It will be hard and weird and awkward and maybe scary, and you will come out on the other side of it and life will go on. And that whether it's having sex or your first big breakup, like, it's ultimately, you're going to be okay. So good. So good. So good.
- [50:40]
A
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B
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A
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- [51:13]
B
Mom talk has just been blowing up. Whitney and Jen are on Dancing with the Stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. Like that is huge. But all the cool opportunities could pull us apart. It's causing issues in everyone's marriage. My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos.
- [51:29]
A
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- [51:38]
B
Let's do some notable quotes because this book has an amazing first line. Just like an all timer, it throws
- [51:44]
A
you for a loop. If you're really coming to a cold, Rebecca, why don't you do the honors?
- [51:48]
B
Yeah. Sybil Davison has a genius iq. And has been laid by at least six different guys.
- [51:54]
A
Can we do a close reading real quick of this particular line? I want to mention I would be delighted. One thing has a genius IQ and they go together, right? They are not in contrast, they're not in conflict. Like those are two things that are not really related in any way. You can be dumb and have more sex than maybe people think you can be smart. But that's a coordinating conjunction. There's no relativistic implication there. I also love the at least six different guys. Like it's kind of a legend, right? The legend of Sybil Davidson. Right? Like we know there's six. We know. But how many more could there be, right? There could be so many more. And then of course, you know, Sybil, the two faced Sybil. Like, you know, I don't know if Bloom is doing this intentionally, but the two faces, these are two sides of Sybil Davidson stories and they're both part of her stories. But. And they're sort of equally valid, right? Like she's a genius and she has had more sexual partners than were presented. The narrator, or at least the main character of this book would seem to be. She's outside of one standard deviation. Her back then, let's put it that way. There a really wonderful line to start.
- [53:02]
B
And you're like, okay, here we go. If you're a teenager in 1975 and that's the opening line, it's like, buckle up because this is going to be a book. There's also a great moment where Catherine realizes that books can't give you all the knowledge about things. I used to think if you read enough books you'd automatically know how to do everything the right way. Like turns out that some things you actually have to experience to figure them out. There's a. How can you love one person and still be attracted to another? Like just really basic stuff about human sexuality and relationships that Catherine is figuring out. And then she also gets the rite of passage moment where she watches her mom and dad. Dad and says he and mom started reminiscing about their college days. I didn't tell them that with Michael and me it's different. That it's not just some 50s fad like going steady. That with us it's love. Real, true, honest to God love. Like what teenager hasn't thought that the thing they're experiencing is so much bigger and more authentic than anything anyone, but especially their parents has ever.
- [54:10]
A
No human has had the hormone level I have ever had at this particular moment. How could that possibly be. Again, I don't have like a full document. It's shorter, but it's not a sentence level. On the whole kind of a situation where there's a lot of close reading kinds of things for me to do. Other people might feel differently, but there are a couple. One I have, like my mother said, you can't go back to holding hands, which I think is poignant, because it's not saying that you know your life is going to be ruined and you are forever a fallen woman. But it does suggest this is a rite of passage. This is. I was reading a book about myth last week and talk about myths of threshold passing. And it is a threshold and the world is different. And you are going to experience things that you wouldn't want to go back, maybe even if you could. But things will be different on the other side of it. And that foretelling of difference is important. And I think that's so much of what people get afraid of in any situation, which their status quo is going to change, is they don't know what it's going to be like on the other side of that threshold. And one thing rites of passage do is suggest not only that it's going to be okay, but others have come before you and they've been okay. And that seems also like something Bloom is working on giving people a model or a structure for this particular rite of passage, where here's one story of how this has happened and they were okay on the other side. And if you look around, the world must be peopled as one thing Shakespeare says, I think in Much Ado About Nothing. All these people around you were the product of these kinds of relationships, some better and some worse than others. But it's so common, even if it's so unspoken at the same time.
- [55:45]
B
Yeah. And I mean, there's like talk about survivability and getting that message across, like Sybil Davison of the genius IQ and the being laid by at least six different guys, gets pregnant, keeps the baby, or keeps the pregnancy, gives the baby up for adoption, and then says that she's getting an IUD because she doesn't plan to give up sex. And like, that one moment is radical enough to ignite a bunch of book banners, but also really powerful in its message to teenage girls that even if the thing that you are told is the big scary boogeyman at the end of your sexuality is that even if it happens, even if you get pregnant, you can make choices about how you handle that and you do not have to Then become a nun. You get to retain sexual agency and desire. And it's, it's so blunt. I was like, this is radical in 2026. Well, people must have lost their mind.
- [56:40]
A
Well, it made me think. And this. I had a subterranean hot take I didn't put here because I wanted to spring it on you. Are we sure we didn't want Sybil Davidson's story? Are we sure we didn't want her to be the main character? What would that have been like always, everywhere, every everywhere, everywhere, everyone, everywhere, all at once, that Sybil Davidson stone.
- [56:58]
B
There you go. Cybill was having a good time.
- [57:01]
A
I mean, I wonder if she even considered that. And maybe that would have been too much for sure. But I did. I'm sure we're getting the most interesting story. Like between Artie and Sybil. Did we get the most boring version of the. Anyway, that's not what Bloom was trying to do here.
- [57:15]
B
It's the most. Maybe common or relatable.
- [57:17]
A
Yeah, it's the most relatable story, I think. And then also, if it's strange, when it comes right down to it, I never do fall apart, even when I'm sure I will. And who haven't felt that before? That thing you're worried about 95% of the time, it's not as bad as you think it's going to be. Sometimes it's as bad. But a lot of the time, so much fretting and so much anxiety actually makes the thing worse than the thing is going to be by itself. And even if it is very bad, so many more things are survivable in their own way than it feels like. Especially when you're young and you don't know anything. Rebecca, because that's the other thing we haven't said here. You don't know anything about. You don't have reps, you don't have like exposure therapy to life that you can get through a hard conversation. You can have a bad breakup, you can have a. You can lose a job, you can get fired, you can, you know, these things can happen. And that's not to diminish that there are situations in which people have life altering, very damaging to the uttermost peril events. But it's also true that so many things that we worry about don't have to go that way and are even exacerbated by the worry over time. Is it for you? Is a really interesting question here. I'll start first. I think this is largely at this point a historical document, though I think that's Right. As we've been talking about it, the thing it's documenting hasn't gone away. So I'm guessing there are more contemporary versions that would speak more directly to the sexual comings of age of today's teenagers, but I'm not 100% certain of that. And I also don't know that how much better or more useful or resonant those things are. Like, does it sort of get the job done even in this day and age? I don't know. I think maybe it does. I don't know what you think about that, Rebecca.
- [59:00]
B
I think it might, I think it might. For the, the, the basics of you've got to talk to people that you're in relationships with, that it's important to know your own mind and your own desires and to communicate those and to have conversations about them and, and this sort of non judgmental examination of your own feelings that Catherine's just like, here's what's going on with me. I'm attracted to this other guy too. And I feel bad, but I'm not like. But I'm not sorry that we're having these relationships. Like, I think it really does a lot of the work. Like this wouldn't be a complete sex ed class for today's teenagers, but I think it's. It could be an important component of the conversation. On the flip side, like maybe not for you if either you're offended by a frank discussion of teenagers having sex because like, boy, this does it, or if you're upset by outmoded language related to sex and dating because this manages to do both of those things. Like, it's very frank, but some of the way that Bloom engages with it is very much a product of 1975. And it's not the way that we would talk about bodies or that we would be hoping to train young people to engage with their.
- [60:07]
A
And I think Bloom would be sensitive to like as a historical document, reading it for context and situation. You want to look at this, what's not said in the book as well, you know, the class, the race, the gender orientation. Like Catherine's ability to get to New York and like have that moment at Planned Parenthood, for example. She speaks English. She knows it exists. Right. She can get there. Like there are things. This is not a universal document, it's a historical one. And maybe it's good of us to remember that all documents are historical. Even something that was written yesterday is situated in a time and place that cannot be nor should be try to encompass everyone's experience all the time. Time. But that's something to keep in mind, especially for this when you're looking at, okay, this is a story of sexual coming of age. It is not all sexual coming of ages for all people in all places and all times. It cannot be. But I think if you acknowledge that, you can see what structures and what pathways are useful and important for a particular reader, a particular person. Immortal questions that aren't asked. I haven't looked at this at all because I thought it'd be cool to do cold the categories we have. What is the good life? What do I owe my neighbor? How do I know what I know? Is this all there is? How to deal with the certainty of death? What else might there be? What's the deal with good and evil? Free will, real or not, really slips through the cracks here a little bit. I do think there is a what is the good life? Question here. I agree. I think that's probably the easiest one. What do you think, Rebecca?
- [61:39]
B
Yeah, I think that's the one here. Like, as Catherine is figuring out what she wants and how to negotiate for her own desires in the context of a relationship with someone else and then ending that, the potential end of that relationship because she wants something else. Like, it is very much a young person starting to put the pieces together of what she thinks a good life is. And, and that that good life is going to involve other people and that that's complicated and difficult and exciting and fun and all of those things. But how to navigate it? Maybe not so much on really any of the other big immortal questions.
- [62:16]
A
The other one, I had to try it out for you maybe real quick, is how do I know what I know? Because the gap between theoretical or educated or even whispered peer to peer knowledge about sexuality versus a lived experience of sexuality. Again, maybe I've got this threshold metaphor, but she has a different approach, understanding of herself and sex on the other side of this relationship than before it. And I do think there's something to the, the limits of book learning here.
- [62:44]
B
And, and, and she figures that out.
- [62:47]
A
Yeah. And that can be useful. And it's all you've got until you've got, I guess the, the, the other side of that cord would be body knowledge here. Right. Sort of, sort of lived corporeal experience of sexuality. But like, you know some things because it's whispered and told and educated, but then you know some things because you know it firsthand. And how those things combined matters here. And I think it matters for a lot of people's lives in so many different kinds of things.
- [63:10]
B
I think that's a good point. We can allow that one.
- [63:11]
A
All right, thank you very much. Are we sure this is about art and writing? This is the easiest one so far. It's not. Rebecca. This is not about art and writing. No.
- [63:17]
B
This one is not about art and writing.
- [63:18]
A
No. There's plays and letters and Candide, but it's not about art and writing. Could you get most of the gist from watching the Signal adaptation? Talk to me about the recent Netflix series. Adaptation. Yeah.
- [63:30]
B
So there's not a 70s or 80s adaptation like from the time in which the book was made. If there had been, I think you probably could get the gist. Like there was a movie from 2023 of are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. And it does really capture the feeling and spirit of the book. But there's a 2025 Netflix series that's set in contemporary. Like it's set in 2018 on up. It's set in LA, though. It's about two young black teenagers and by virtue of being in a different place, about people who are having a different racial experience and in a different time with technology. It is true to the spirit of the book, but not to the letter of the book. It drops some of the most important conversations that Katherine and Michael have in the book. But the girl, Keisha in the show is coming out of a relationship where a boy has distributed a video of her that they took in private and that has made its way out and she's changed schools and meet. She meets the Justin, the boy after that happened to her. And he doesn't know about the video at first. So they are. They're negotiating sexuality in contemporary culture. I watched it over the weekend, the like eight episode series. I had a cold and I was. Yeah, it's eight episodes. I was looking for something to marathon.
- [64:48]
A
No, no, no. I'm just saying, like, why? That's a weird choice to make. That's a lot of episodes for this book.
- [64:54]
B
Well, it's an eight episode season that follows them through their senior year and they're getting ready to leave for college and then it's Netflix, so they have picked it up for a second season.
- [65:04]
A
Okay.
- [65:04]
B
But it's gorgeous. It looks like Netflix spent some money on it. It was well acted. I think it's great as a piece of tv, but it's just more a great thing that happens to have been inspired by a Judy Blume book than it is an actual representation of the Judy Blume book.
- [65:19]
A
Yeah. Then also, if you had to make another adaptation movie, musical, TV series or Muppets. Muppets is also. Is always the wild card in this situation. You have the point here that needs to stay in book form because interiority. I agree that how Catherine is feeling and what she isn't saying while she's going through her life and these experiences so much of the time is the meat of this particular story. I will say, though, that musicals can be great because the songs are great. You know, the want songs clearly, like, go along, both for Michael and Kathy for the version. And they're good for expressions of melodramatic. Melodramatic yearning, interiority. I do think, though, that it matters that we get relatively specific play by play of their sexual encounters. And I don't think you can do that on a stage just because people like. It just doesn't.
- [66:09]
B
I was waiting for that.
- [66:11]
A
I don't. I don't know how you actually represent those things, because it matters who's touching what. What happens and who comes at what point and where they are. I just don't know how you do that. That's not.
- [66:20]
B
Yeah, I was waiting for that, watching the show of, like. Like, you see them kind of go off on the day that they're gonna have sex together for the first time in the TV series. And I was waiting for, like, oh, are they gonna do the moment? Like, is. Is he gonna come too quickly? Are they gonna have to talk about it? And they did. They alighted that.
- [66:39]
A
Wow.
- [66:40]
B
So, yeah, and it's. I think that's easier to put on the page than to really depict. But also, how powerful would that be for teenagers to be able to see this is like a pretty normal, common experience in sexuality between straight people. And for them to be able to see it and watch young people actually have a conversation about it could be really important. So it's a little. I was disappointed that some of those big conversations from the book did not make their way into the series, even though the series does some other important kinds of conversations.
- [67:14]
A
I mean. Yeah, that is a tough elision because for many young men, that is a signal concern of early sexual encounters is that particular thing.
- [67:27]
B
And also for then the young girls, the women that they're having sex with, like, how do you respond? How do you handle that? What creates. Like, we're trying to create an environment here where everybody feels safe and supported and where we can explore this together. So what does that look like? And the great gift that Judy Blume gives is actually showing one version of what that looks like what they said. The contrast between what she thought and what she said. Like, she tells him that she. She's not disappointed, but she tells us that she was and that she didn't really feel anything. And even navigating. What of your experience do you share with this partner? What do you keep private because you don't want to hurt them or it's not necessary as you're moving forward? It's really delicate stuff, and I think books do that better than almost anything.
- [68:14]
A
Yeah. Interesting. All right. Trivia, adaptation, rumors, mystery quotes, etc. Oh, you know what? I didn't see you had this here, but I had the thing about the daughter asking her to write something about which young people had sex.
- [68:24]
B
I love that.
- [68:25]
A
I do love that, too. I haven't watched the 2023 documentary. I thought it might do with my kids at some point. We just haven't got around to it. Called Judy Blume Forever, about her life and legacy. Notable. I was reading an interview with her yesterday. She sat for a lot of interviews, but she didn't have final cut or anything about this. In this day and age where so many artists do, like, here's my vanity project. I actually kind of find it important to know if the subject has final cut or not in a document like this.
- [68:52]
B
Yeah, it doesn't feel like a Judy Bloom propaganda piece. It feels like a celebration from the filmmakers. One of her daughter, Randy, became a therapist whose subspecialty is helping writers finish their work, which is amazing. Kind of amazing as Judy Blume's kid. And she owns a bookstore in Key west where she still works three days a week. You get some footage of it in the documentary. Documentary. And you have in the notes here, apparently women come to see her and it's a moment for them. And that is captured in the documentary.
- [69:23]
A
I hope so. I really am glad to hear that.
- [69:25]
B
I was telling Bob yesterday that, like, I. Like, I. I mean, you know this about me. I don't have, like, a big fandom gene, but I do think that I might become quite emotional. Meeting Judy Blue. Yeah, I. I get how that's a thing for people.
- [69:41]
A
Hot takes, Rebecca.
- [69:44]
B
I think. I mean, this could have had more staying power if Bloom had updated it with modern technology, but the technology and the conversations around teenage sexuality shift so often that I don't think she needs to. Also, Judy Bloom's doing just fine. Like, she doesn't just let someone else do it.
- [70:00]
A
Yeah. Let someone else try to take their hand at this particular passage.
- [70:04]
B
I talked about Cybill Davison and her pregnancy and giving up the baby for adoption and then getting an IUD because she has no intention of giving up sex. But that's a totally valid decision and it's bold to say it now in 2026, but especially in 1975. Like just really great stuff there. I liked your note here about imagining if Judy Bloom had pulled a Stephenie Meyer and told the story from Michael's perspective too.
- [70:30]
A
Yeah, I don't want to pull a but what about the boys? But I do think a similar story from Michael's point of view would have educated a different kind of reader and things that useful to be educated from like Stranger Things. Erica is the real mvp. It's not the same Erica, but that was the Erica I was. You know, that's the most recent Erica that who is a spark plug who's ready to do some things and is attracted to someone who just not the right vessel for her desire and interest. And she's just a spark plug. I can't imagine what the character was like in the adaptation, but a real chance for a side character to shine in an adaptation. But every time she come in she serves as both a hype woman and sort of emotional antagonist for Catherine, sort of prodding her along to own her own design.
- [71:21]
B
There's not really a correlated character in the adaptation. It's mostly just Keisha and Justin together.
- [71:26]
A
What do we doing? Okay, well I'm glad people are enjoying that. But now I'm having the least fun book readers experience like that. Sounds terrible as an adaptation. My last one for you here. This was also a subterranean hot take is what if Romeo and Juliet had had forever to read? I don't think they're committing mutual suicide.
- [71:47]
B
Hopefully not. Judy Blume seems to be writing directly into that space where teenagers all are melodramatic and think that the relationship that they're currently in when they're 15 is going to be the one that they're in forever and that they'll die if the breakup ever happens. Yeah, Judy Blume could have saved Romeo and Juliet but also ruined Shakespeare.
- [72:11]
A
That's right. Yeah, it's exactly the kind of book that Romeo and Juliet didn't have to read. Actually, you know who should have used it? The Capulets. Because you know, if we get Juliet a summer job on the amount Amalfi coast, she's gonna forget all about this Romeo fella.
- [72:24]
B
Yeah, don't pressure them into getting married young.
- [72:27]
A
Make him teach tennis to 12 year olds. Also, I have another quick this is more of a straight thought, but her Younger sister Jamie breaks out the F word. We're trying to be, you know, keep the label here. I laughed loudly when Jamie did that. Bad words, but that is not a bad word. I thought that was really funny.
- [72:50]
B
That is the most popular Goodreads quote from.
- [72:53]
A
Oh, we didn't do that. The most popular good. That. That makes a ton of sense to me.
- [72:56]
B
I went and looked.
- [72:57]
C
Yeah.
- [72:57]
A
For the reading recommendations.
- [72:59]
B
Okay. 24 seconds from now by Jason Reynolds is a contemporary story inspired by this. Our colleague Kelly interviewed him for our YA podcast a few years ago. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. And he cites Forever as one of his inspirations for it. But deals with young people in a sexual relationship. How are they navigating the relationship and being teenagers and their parents and all of it. Like his mom finds her bra in his room and they've got to deal with stuff. I also do think the Judy Bloom Forever documentary is a good place to go. And the corpus of Judy Blume. Like if you liked. If you read Forever or you have read it and you like that frankness. She does that in each of her books just about a different thing. And it's refreshing and fun even though it's dated.
- [73:50]
A
Cocktail Party Crypt. Three to five takeaways. We have just one here and I think this is it. This is your line. So again, I'm not gonna step on your line.
- [73:55]
B
It's a groundbreaking and pretty timeless book about first love and sex and all that comes with it.
- [74:02]
A
Our final beat is our zero well read score. Each one gets a score from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. Our five categories are historical importance, readability, current relevance of central questions, book nerd read credit. Oh, damn factor. Historical importance is probably its highest scoring category here. I mean, I think so 9 or 10 here. Somewhere in that range 9.
- [74:23]
B
I would give it a 9. Probably a 10 at the time actually. If you basically invent the category of young adult fiction, you probably have to be a 10.
- [74:31]
A
Yeah, but it wasn't this book. That's Judy Blume.
- [74:33]
B
Like this particular book, we'll do nine and a half.
- [74:35]
A
Okay. Very readable. I guess also a nine.
- [74:40]
B
Yeah.
- [74:40]
A
What would make it less? I mean it's. I guess if the actual reading experience was, I don't know, more page turnery, a lot of plot, you know, wonderful sentences kind of stuff. Not that's bad. But that's not. That's. It's a YA book. So it's trying to do different things
- [74:58]
B
than what not high.
- [74:59]
A
47 year old looking for in a lot of reading sprints, current relevance of central questions. I mean there's a way this is a 10 and there's a way it's a 3. I think it's a 10 though.
- [75:07]
B
Yeah, I think it's a 10. Yeah.
- [75:11]
A
It's the questions, not the answers. Right. The question. The answers might be given differently now, but the Questions are a 10. Book nerd read cred. Why don't you try to. You. You Bloom is more in your, I don't know, you had the early reading experience. I don't know which one of us a better take on how to evaluate this one.
- [75:28]
B
This is in the pantheon of. Well, it really depends on how old you are.
- [75:34]
A
I think so many of these, if you did it by yourself on your own later, you're like, wow, that was a real. You did a real, a real reading work there.
- [75:42]
B
Yeah. If you're like in your. Anywhere from your, I don't know, mid to late 30s on book nerd read cred is more likely to be just kind of built in. Like if you didn't read forever, you probably had some Judy Blume exposure or somebody. Judy Bloom was in the water even if you weren't reading her. But if you're really like Gen Z or on down, I think you have to seek out Judy Blume. So you do get a highlight.
- [76:11]
A
I should talk to the public school librarians. I know a couple like, is this a book that still gets circulated in those libraries? Do people pick it up?
- [76:19]
B
Well, are they like, where's Judy Blume? On the shelf in your house with teenagers?
- [76:26]
A
You know, there's so much more middle grade in YA that she doesn't have the primacy in there. There's like new stuff coming out for them.
- [76:35]
B
Yeah. Okay, so I think I'm gonna give it five, six, like a five or a five and a half somewhere in there.
- [76:44]
A
Yeah, I mean the oh, damn factor. I guess I'll speak for this is maybe, maybe this is one where my first time experiences is interesting. The scenes of them trying to figure out what they want to do with each other's bodies still are fascinating and surprising. Like you feel like there's something going on there that is not worn out, that is not overly familiar, that's not completely out of fashion. It still feels like there's something going on in those moments that's important for the writing and the reading. So seven, seven and a half.
- [77:21]
B
Yeah, I think that's right.
- [77:22]
A
Somewhere in there.
- [77:22]
B
Yeah.
- [77:23]
A
All right, Rebecca, that brings us to the end of our discussion. Of Forever by Judy Blum. Stick around if you would like to sign up for our Patreon to hear us talk to Kelly Jensen, who is our resident YA expert and expert nationally in book bannings and censorship conversations. Looking forward to that conversation. You go to patreon.com 02 well read for those detailed show notes, the free newsletter and other membership options. Follow us on the social media Zero to well Read podcast and then email us at 02wellreadbookriot.com thanks to Thriftbooks for sponsoring this season of Zero to well Read. And as always, Zero to well Read is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Rebecca we'll see out there. Monster Energy Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra. That's the og. It kicked off this whole Zero Sugar energy drink thing, but Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got straight Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise and Vice Guava, and they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the White can branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe, and every single one is Zero Sugar Tap the banner to learn more.