The Truth About Forever

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-11

Chapters 12-17

Chapters 18-22

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

“Gotcha”

The game of “gotcha” is a motif for Embracing the Unpredictability of Life. The surprises in the game symbolize unpredictability, but, ultimately, it is up to the players to embrace and navigate the unexpected. By introducing surprises to its players, gotcha demonstrates how some situations in life can leap out, “scaring the hell out of everyone” (80). When Delia tells Macy of Wish’s death, she says “it was the biggest gotcha in the world” (99). In a way, the death of Macy’s father was the biggest gotcha she’s ever experienced. While at first, Macy hates the game because she views all gotchas as negative, she learns to appreciate it.

Gotcha also tests a person’s ability to adapt to lack of control, especially concerning situations they cannot predetermine. This is a skill Macy must eventually learn as she lets go of her obsession with perfection and incessant need to control everything. The penultimate test of gotcha is when Macy is shocked to see Wes at Word of Waffles with Becky. At this point in the novel, Macy has not fully embraced life with all its chaotic imperfections. Macy doesn’t yet understand that embracing doesn’t necessarily mean accepting one’s circumstances, but rather adapting and then reassessing how to proceed. Macy is unable to cope with a sudden development she did not foresee, and instead of embracing it by seeking to have an honest discussion with Wes, Macy shuts down and pushes Wes away. It is only when Macy is surprised to discover her father’s gift to her is one of Wes’s sculptures that Macy realizes some surprises aren’t negative, but rather offer new and exciting possibilities—but only if she is open to embracing them.

Ellipses

Ellipses symbolize the difference between a pause and an ending. Much like the title suggests, “forever” is open to interpretation. As Macy wonders, “Who knew three dots could make such a difference? Like everything else, a love or a wish or whatever, it was all in the way you read it” (76). Macy has always wanted definitive answers after her father’s untimely death. It’s why she begins dating Jason because he knows everything and always seems to have the answers. However, as Macy soon realizes, the problem with having all the answers is that sometimes they’re not what people want to hear.

In Chapter 4, during a wedding reception for Molly and Roger that the Wish team caters, Molly complains about the ellipses on the napkins following the word “forever.” Molly views the ellipses as something you use “when you leave something open-ended, unfinished” (74). Molly views it in a negative light, believing that it indicates her marriage is maybe forever or maybe not. In the moment, Macy gives a textbook definition of it as something used to “make a transition” or “to show a thought trailing off” (75). To make Molly feel better, Macy later interprets it as not representing doubt but “hinting at the future. What lies ahead” (75). However, this interpretation is not how Macy herself sees forever.

As Kristy, Delia, and other members of Wish Catering assure Macy, forever can be interpreted differently based on how people choose to live their lives because “it’s like forever, always changing” (136). Since her father’s death, Macy has seen her forever with a period, as an ending and an inevitability—as in, this is how life will be, forever, full of grief and always reaching for impossible standards of perfection. Throughout the course of the novel, Macy eventually learns to see it with an ellipsis, a continuation of life filled with endless potential.

Potholes

Potholes are a motif for The Illusion of Perfection. As Delia views them, potholes are much like the wear and tear a person accrues along the path of life.

When Macy first comes upon the pothole in the gravel road leading to Delia’s house, she is distracted by other things, which causes her to become stuck. The situation mirrors how, by distracting herself from the pain and guilt surrounding her father’s death, Macy is stuck inside a metaphorical pothole, unable to escape and move forward with the healing process. Her mother, Deborah, is the same way, distracting herself with the townhomes project for her company, rather than addressing the hole in her own life. They each make attempts to escape the hole by filling it up with the illusion of perfection or with other things or people. For Deborah, it is Queen Homes, and for Macy, it is Jason.

To Delia, Melissa’s death “was just this huge loss, this huge gap” (99). Delia doesn’t fill the pothole, just as she doesn’t try to gloss over the pain and empty space left by Melissa’s death. Just like life, there are holes in the road, but just because it’s there doesn’t mean that it’s broken and in need of fixing. Macy realizes that while Delia respectfully edges around and acknowledges the holes in her life, Macy goes “miles out of the way, as if avoiding it would make it go away once and for all” (100). By not facing her grief and the hole her father left, Macy is unaware of “its depths, its area, the distance across, and the way over or around it” (100), an ignorance that hinders and prolongs her healing process.