Love You Forever

Obviously enough, I'm in the minority here, but this children's book is weird, creepy, disturbing and will probably give me more nightmares than any Stephen King novel ever did.

"Love You Forever" is, as the title indicates, about a mother who loves her sweet little baby boy forever, until her baby has grown into an adult and she into an old woman. I'm perfectly fine with the message that mothers (respectively parents in general) will always love their children and will (in most cases - sadly enough, there are always exceptions) do everything for them to be comfortable. But Robert Munsch simply overexaggerated while portraying this message, and finally made me see a totally different message in this book: That a mother's love justifies show more stalking her children and entering into their lives in one of the creepiest and most disturbing ways - by climbing a ladder to her son's bedroom, entering the house and picking her son up to rock him back and forth while he's sleeping.

I'm sorry, but this is so weird, I can't even find it funny anymore. Yes, the book is meant to be understood metaphorically, the book is supposed to be somehow funny and cute and oh-so-sweet (although I only furled my eyebrows in confusion rather than actually laughing). In the beginning, the book was still interesting; everyone can relate to the way children can bring chaos into everything. But then the mother began to enter her son's room at night. Is it okay to go into your two-year-old son's bedroom while he's sleeping with the intention of admiring him and admitting that you will love him forever? Yes, it is. I am totally fine with that. Doing so with a nine-year-old son begins to show signs of creepiness, but it's still acceptable.
It isn't acceptable if your son is thirty and has moved on with his own life. You can't just break into his house to admire him, indifferent from how lonely you might feel. (And yes, I understand that this book is not supposed to be taken seriously, and it's not even realistically possible for an old woman to be able to pick up her full-grown son while he's sleeping, but this book pretends it is, so I will too.) There are thousands of better ways to incorporate a message about a mother's love into a book. I wouldn't even consider this one to be a children's book ... calling it a horror novel would perhaps be more appropriate.

If you want to read a fantastic children's book, then please skip this and read [b:The Velveteen Rabbit|144974|The Velveteen Rabbit|Margery Williams|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347748913s/144974.jpg|1602074] instead, which is an absolutely wonderful story. Or if you want to read two more reviews of "Love You Forever" which I really enjoyed and can whole-heartedly recommend reading, then read this Anne's review or the other Anne's. show less

Creepy! The loving idea and intention behind this story is plain to see but the execution missed the mark. It’s creepy! The unbeknownst adult son strewn across the mothers lap? Her crawling across his floor in the night to get to him? Perfect horror story. And the illustration adds to the creepiness. The loving hold and rocking could have been sheen in a nice cuddle and hug instead of a limp grownup across another’s lap. Again... without consent while he sleeps!

This book was a gift for us, we’ll give it away to charity.

Okay, I know, I know, giving this book five stars is about the laziest throwaway rating possible, and there may be some who prefer the lack of illusions in The Giving Tree, which shows this kind of absolute devotion stripped of its gauze, but the fact that Munsch here gets away with the soft-focus treatment is salutary. There is a time for sentimentality, and it is reading this book. Emmett loves to sway back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with the mother and her son and sing along with the song, although I have to be careful not to read it to him nights when his mum's at work or he gets distressed. I love the mum's big eyes when she sneaks up to her kid's bed, and how late-eighties the kid is in all the drawings (all "Sunny show more D! Thanks mom!") and I love that there's no going back, and as long as I'm living, my baby Emmett will be. It focuses the mind. It means--not that the book gets into these waters, because it is a paean to one bond and one only--that every day I need to get up and try hard to smile and bear up under all the anger and bad blood that his mum and I can't seem to overcome, because he's her baby forever too. Robert Munsch wrote this book after he lost his baby. It gets five stars. show less

I know, a lot of people love this book. But climbing through your adult son's window and crawling on the floor to peek over the bed while he sleeps is stalkerish behavior and creepy. If my mother-in-law was doing that I would need to set some serious boundaries and ask her to use the front door, but only during daylight. Maybe that's why he's sleeping in his own bed by the end of the book. I don't know, but there are plenty of healthier ways to let your children know you love them as they get older...don't act like a freaking robber in the middle of the night. Gives me the heebie jeebies!

Ok, read this years ago, thought it was very touching.

BUT... then I showed it to my husband who went absolutely nuts over it. The man who reads non-fiction, politics, books about the Kennedys, old New York, Dave Barry and other humor books. The same man who read fiction (mostly the cliff notes' versions) only because of school. The man who doesn't get Tolkien or Harry Potter, or connect in any personal way with my huge collection of novels and short stories, except to use one or two to keep the blinds from rattling on windy nights.

This man teared up when reading Love You, Forever!! And whenever he sees the book he gets a lump in his throat. I still find it amazing... and incredibly funny.

As a child in grade school, I always thought this book was so sweet, loving and cute as it showed the mother, son relationship. As an adult now I definitely view this book slightly different only because some parts make me feel a little standoffish. I do feel and see the love being portrayed in the book, but it seems like the mom is a little obsessed with her son in an unhealthy way as she visits without telling him prior, and makes an effort to sneak up on him in the middle of the night and hold him as if he were still a young boy. For children, it is a very cute book to read that I think they will enjoy. The way the mother approaches her son is strange to me, but yet again I am not a mother.

I know I am in the vast minority where this book is concerned. As a child I enjoyed the message of this book easily, but as a jaded, cynical adult I can not help but see how morbid and misleading the message can be. Lots of people enjoy this book and I do not doubt the author intended the message to be uplifting, but when you look at it more deeply, it just comes across as really creepy. Hate me for my opinion if you will.