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Charlie, Forever and Ever
Charlie, a young doctoral student of mixed race with schizoaffective disorder, in 1990's Manhattan, is on the brink of discovery when she meets- and falls in love with- boygod ; the troubled heir to a tech company ruled by his beautiful and ruthless mother, Daphne Fitzgerald-Turner. The pair immerse themselves in an intense relationship, fueled by drugs and a traumatic bond with their respective mothers. B oygod , whose volatile relationship with imperious Daphne crosses many shocking borders, and Charlie, whose own mother's struggles with mental illness lead to a near case of filicide.
As Charlie delves further into the shadowy realms of science and her mind, she becomes convinced that she can predict the future, that the technology she creates will be responsible for untold misery throughout the world. Unable to extricate herself from the web of her abusive relationships, Charlie begins to spiral further into the imagined safety of the whispers of her mind. What they have to say may change the narrative of humankind or doom it completely.
Told through hauntingly poetic prose by Charlie and the boygod, Charlie, Forever and Ever will lead you through an evocative labyrinth of deep, erotic desires and contrary hearts.
As Charlie delves further into the shadowy realms of science and her mind, she becomes convinced that she can predict the future, that the technology she creates will be responsible for untold misery throughout the world. Unable to extricate herself from the web of her abusive relationships, Charlie begins to spiral further into the imagined safety of the whispers of her mind. What they have to say may change the narrative of humankind or doom it completely.
Told through hauntingly poetic prose by Charlie and the boygod, Charlie, Forever and Ever will lead you through an evocative labyrinth of deep, erotic desires and contrary hearts.
172 pages, Paperback
Published November 15, 2021
1 person is currently reading
9 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 20, 2021
It's difficult to express how much I loved this book. It touches on a variety of topics and themes, but the one constant is this brilliant stream of consciousness that practically vibrates on every page. A star-crossed relationship that is as fated as it is doomed, and the minutia of how two human beings that are hopelessly drawn to each other can also unwittingly become poison to each other. The progressive evolution of technology and what it means to our species. The story takes place in the 90s and the time period is captured so accurately that you'll feel instant nostalgia for those lost days.
A highlight for me personally? The prose is just so damn GOOD. It's literary, it's hypnotic, Sierra releases this untethered expulsion of moments & feelings to the degree where you feel less like a reader and more like a participant alive within the pages. With prose like this, I'm convinced that reading even a shopping list from Sierra would be memorable as hell.
I like to start off each review with a quote or passage I really liked from a book, and that is difficult with this novel, because I was finding those quotes on almost every page...so that alone should tell you what you're in store for.
Read this book.
A highlight for me personally? The prose is just so damn GOOD. It's literary, it's hypnotic, Sierra releases this untethered expulsion of moments & feelings to the degree where you feel less like a reader and more like a participant alive within the pages. With prose like this, I'm convinced that reading even a shopping list from Sierra would be memorable as hell.
I like to start off each review with a quote or passage I really liked from a book, and that is difficult with this novel, because I was finding those quotes on almost every page...so that alone should tell you what you're in store for.
Read this book.
December 19, 2021
This book was a trippppp.
It takes you on such an intense and satisfying ride.
Throughout you are accompanied by feelings of dread, hope, despair but the important part is— you are feeling.
The story follows Charlie, a young and hopeful scientist who views the world differently than others but who is starting to show positive symptoms of schizophrenia. She falls into a whirlwind romance with a young tech mogul who pulls her into his world but all the while we get flashes of Charlie’s inner life, how she got here.
It’s beautifully written in prose and there were lines I found myself reading over and over again for I wanted to memorize them, burn them into me.
Sierra captures something so intricate and little known in her debut novel, a woman, working in tech and struggling with mental illness in the 90s. She weaves an expert tale about love, loss, science, and our futures. I’m in awe, it’s a book I didn’t know I needed in my life.
Highly recommend.
It takes you on such an intense and satisfying ride.
Throughout you are accompanied by feelings of dread, hope, despair but the important part is— you are feeling.
The story follows Charlie, a young and hopeful scientist who views the world differently than others but who is starting to show positive symptoms of schizophrenia. She falls into a whirlwind romance with a young tech mogul who pulls her into his world but all the while we get flashes of Charlie’s inner life, how she got here.
It’s beautifully written in prose and there were lines I found myself reading over and over again for I wanted to memorize them, burn them into me.
Sierra captures something so intricate and little known in her debut novel, a woman, working in tech and struggling with mental illness in the 90s. She weaves an expert tale about love, loss, science, and our futures. I’m in awe, it’s a book I didn’t know I needed in my life.
Highly recommend.
June 25, 2022
There are some books out there that make you feel as if you have been sucked right into it, and have no concept of the world around you whilst you're reading the pages.
Charlie, Forever and Ever is one of those books. Having read other work from Sierra, I wasn't surprised to find myself submerged into this visceral, stream-of-consciousness type of story. There were times while reading where I wasn't entirely certain what was happening, but I was always brought back, tethered just at the right time. This is a book that certainly deserves a second read, for there is so much within every word and phrase that will make you think, make you want to come back to it and pry it apart to dissect it.
The writing style is a flawless poetry, making every page dripping with one sense or another. It felt like an otherworldly kind of book, and I will definitely be revisiting it at another time to see what I can draw from it upon a second or third read.
Charlie, Forever and Ever is one of those books. Having read other work from Sierra, I wasn't surprised to find myself submerged into this visceral, stream-of-consciousness type of story. There were times while reading where I wasn't entirely certain what was happening, but I was always brought back, tethered just at the right time. This is a book that certainly deserves a second read, for there is so much within every word and phrase that will make you think, make you want to come back to it and pry it apart to dissect it.
The writing style is a flawless poetry, making every page dripping with one sense or another. It felt like an otherworldly kind of book, and I will definitely be revisiting it at another time to see what I can draw from it upon a second or third read.
April 27, 2022
The main character Charlie from is the ultimate everywoman. When this anti-heroine says “This is not a love story. This is murder.” She is so right as Natalie Sierra slays you with her lusty, longing mesmerizing prose. I love her celebrity verité in this novel set in the 90s New York. NYC is a character unlike most novels, Sierra shows the city as imperfect, dirty and beautifully strange place I’ve always wanted to visit.
I love the way Charlie Forever and Ever reveals Charlie’s retail/student life as so memorably scintillating of drug trips, when she finds her “twin” lover “connected again by strange lines of energy, electricity and death.” Even when she is sad, the doomed Cassandra of code and cyberspace, alone fantasizing about her boygod Jeffery and later discovering the carnal desire that hungers between two eternal lovers, you want to dive in between each chapter and be a part of this spellbindingly evocative epic.
FlowerSong Press has published a triumph, Charlie is not only the kind of character you want to meet, be best friends, date, fall, longing for her, in this seductively modern-day erotic trippy tech classic, she is the one Leonard Cohen would write poems and songs about, the kind of siren you will always remember, long after you finished experiencing Charlie Forever and Ever more.
I love the way Charlie Forever and Ever reveals Charlie’s retail/student life as so memorably scintillating of drug trips, when she finds her “twin” lover “connected again by strange lines of energy, electricity and death.” Even when she is sad, the doomed Cassandra of code and cyberspace, alone fantasizing about her boygod Jeffery and later discovering the carnal desire that hungers between two eternal lovers, you want to dive in between each chapter and be a part of this spellbindingly evocative epic.
FlowerSong Press has published a triumph, Charlie is not only the kind of character you want to meet, be best friends, date, fall, longing for her, in this seductively modern-day erotic trippy tech classic, she is the one Leonard Cohen would write poems and songs about, the kind of siren you will always remember, long after you finished experiencing Charlie Forever and Ever more.
April 3, 2022
I believe I should put up a disclaimer that this book is not for everyone.
This is a romance novel, but a horror story, a thriller, a tale that weaves in and out of time like something from ancient myths.
Charlie, Forever and Ever is a unique story. There's no chapter breaks. The words are stream of conscious, sometimes vague, sometimes overly descriptive, time is a ball of wire that Natalie Sierra plays with however she damn well pleases.
I don't know how to break this story down into a review. It's an LSD trip that will either captivate you or turn you off. It's free flowing style leads the reader through this imaginative world of fantasy that's very much real but feels like something so out of reach. Sierra plays with language, with story, with the format.
Every little trick is broken down, and used to perfection. The relationship detailed is equal parts romantic, erotic, suffocating, scary, and just so real that even if you don't understand the story you understand the feelings.
This is very much a book meant to evoke emotions, and is at its best when we get insights into Charlie's mental state, her journal entries, her soul that just flies in between each passage. I'm not trying to be poetic about this, this is just what Sierra evokes with her beautifully crafted, poetically charged prose.
As someone who searches for prose that can be used in ways beyond simple story telling, this book has captivated me and left me with a hangover that I'm not sure how long it'll last.
This is a romance novel, but a horror story, a thriller, a tale that weaves in and out of time like something from ancient myths.
Charlie, Forever and Ever is a unique story. There's no chapter breaks. The words are stream of conscious, sometimes vague, sometimes overly descriptive, time is a ball of wire that Natalie Sierra plays with however she damn well pleases.
I don't know how to break this story down into a review. It's an LSD trip that will either captivate you or turn you off. It's free flowing style leads the reader through this imaginative world of fantasy that's very much real but feels like something so out of reach. Sierra plays with language, with story, with the format.
Every little trick is broken down, and used to perfection. The relationship detailed is equal parts romantic, erotic, suffocating, scary, and just so real that even if you don't understand the story you understand the feelings.
This is very much a book meant to evoke emotions, and is at its best when we get insights into Charlie's mental state, her journal entries, her soul that just flies in between each passage. I'm not trying to be poetic about this, this is just what Sierra evokes with her beautifully crafted, poetically charged prose.
As someone who searches for prose that can be used in ways beyond simple story telling, this book has captivated me and left me with a hangover that I'm not sure how long it'll last.
January 10, 2022
This story is a like a maze and it's filled with a complicated network of thoughts that makes it hard for you to find your way out. The story is written in a way that makes you feel like you are in a dreamy state most of the time.
The writing is very beautiful and hypnotic. Sierra uses beautiful expressions to describe thoughts, feelings and the world. Some lines I had to read several times because I wanted to try to remember them.
I found some parts in the story to be very confusing. I wish they could have been more lucid but maybe that was on purpose. Maybe Sierra wanted to show us the complicated mind of a person with a schizoaffective disorders. In that case, she succeeded.
I had a hard time relating to any of the characters. Maybe that's how it should be but I need to connect to a character in just a tiny way, so that I can feel for the character. This made me feel like a beholder watching the MC's complicated and intelligent mind working process.
Then we have this relationship that is doomed to fail. Sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes the love is so strong that the persons end up hurting each other instead. This was a very toxic relationship.
I also felt like I needed a clear break between scenes. That is just my opinion. I feel like a book is more reader friendly if there are chapter breaks. It minimizes the need for me to remember specific details when putting down the book.
Overall a good read. I'm pending between a 3.5-4 star.
I'm looking forward to read more from this author because I truly liked her writing.
The writing is very beautiful and hypnotic. Sierra uses beautiful expressions to describe thoughts, feelings and the world. Some lines I had to read several times because I wanted to try to remember them.
I found some parts in the story to be very confusing. I wish they could have been more lucid but maybe that was on purpose. Maybe Sierra wanted to show us the complicated mind of a person with a schizoaffective disorders. In that case, she succeeded.
I had a hard time relating to any of the characters. Maybe that's how it should be but I need to connect to a character in just a tiny way, so that I can feel for the character. This made me feel like a beholder watching the MC's complicated and intelligent mind working process.
Then we have this relationship that is doomed to fail. Sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes the love is so strong that the persons end up hurting each other instead. This was a very toxic relationship.
I also felt like I needed a clear break between scenes. That is just my opinion. I feel like a book is more reader friendly if there are chapter breaks. It minimizes the need for me to remember specific details when putting down the book.
Overall a good read. I'm pending between a 3.5-4 star.
I'm looking forward to read more from this author because I truly liked her writing.
December 8, 2022
"November. Still no word from my lover."
This one tiny line is so simplistically powerful. Natalie Sierra's prose is poetic and rich, yet sometimes it doesn't need to be - the author can communicate heavy meanings with 7 words alone. This line is powerful for its uncertainty: when a romance is so strong, wild, and tumultuous, it is a constant guessing game.
'Charlie, Forever and Ever' is so hard to review. It is a romance. I would say a dark romance. It is the life of a young woman trying to achieve her dreams in 1990s New York. There is also friendship here. And a whole lot of drugs. And tech. Company politics. A good amount of eroticism (take the scene in the bathtub where Charlie has just met the mother of her lover 🤯 Boundaries, anyone?) Charlie has met and fallen for the 'boygod', New York's number 1 eligible bachelor, heir to a rich tech dynasty, but it is a romance of constant excess. It is freeing, addictive, fun - and later painful and dangerous.
The writing was superb, and that's something I noticed as soon as I began this book. By the end, I do wish it had a little more plot, but that's just me. Natalie Sierra wrote this book with experimentation in mind, and the uninterrupted narrative, and sometimes stream of consciousness excerpts, are certainly experimental. But while my concentration did feel a little strained towards the end, I never once thought of not finishing it. I knew the book was building.
This is the kind of book you need to read twice to maybe get every single reference and Easter egg. I can't shake the feeling that everything I mentioned in terms of the story is just one piece of the layer. Right near the end, there were some passages that had me second guessing everything I had just read, and now some warring theories are running around my skull. Is it real? Delusion? Dream? And the ending (a moment that brings us back to the book's title), is it literal or just a metaphor?
I'm stunned this is a debut novel.
This one tiny line is so simplistically powerful. Natalie Sierra's prose is poetic and rich, yet sometimes it doesn't need to be - the author can communicate heavy meanings with 7 words alone. This line is powerful for its uncertainty: when a romance is so strong, wild, and tumultuous, it is a constant guessing game.
'Charlie, Forever and Ever' is so hard to review. It is a romance. I would say a dark romance. It is the life of a young woman trying to achieve her dreams in 1990s New York. There is also friendship here. And a whole lot of drugs. And tech. Company politics. A good amount of eroticism (take the scene in the bathtub where Charlie has just met the mother of her lover 🤯 Boundaries, anyone?) Charlie has met and fallen for the 'boygod', New York's number 1 eligible bachelor, heir to a rich tech dynasty, but it is a romance of constant excess. It is freeing, addictive, fun - and later painful and dangerous.
The writing was superb, and that's something I noticed as soon as I began this book. By the end, I do wish it had a little more plot, but that's just me. Natalie Sierra wrote this book with experimentation in mind, and the uninterrupted narrative, and sometimes stream of consciousness excerpts, are certainly experimental. But while my concentration did feel a little strained towards the end, I never once thought of not finishing it. I knew the book was building.
This is the kind of book you need to read twice to maybe get every single reference and Easter egg. I can't shake the feeling that everything I mentioned in terms of the story is just one piece of the layer. Right near the end, there were some passages that had me second guessing everything I had just read, and now some warring theories are running around my skull. Is it real? Delusion? Dream? And the ending (a moment that brings us back to the book's title), is it literal or just a metaphor?
I'm stunned this is a debut novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2022
This book made me feel as if I was rummaging through someone else's thoughts, watching them get more tangled as time passed. It broke me into a million pieces, as Charlie devolved I devolved. I disassociated after finishing it unable to comprehend what I just went through. I did predict the ending mid way through but that didn't change its impact. This was a blind date book I purchased and the only hint I got was "Fade into You by Mazzy Star". 15/10 I will be recommending this book to everyone, although it's important to mentally prepare. I did not and now it feels as if a piece of me is missing as if I lived a whole life and now i'm back in this one.
March 21, 2022
What a heartwrenching story about toxic relationships, the longing and lust we mistake for love, peter pan syndrome, and becoming an adult in your twenties… The writing was fantastic and Natalie Sierra’s prose is beautiful poetry on the page. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in fiction which blurs the lines of realism and magical science fiction. There are so many pieces of this book that will stay with me forever.
—
That said, I gave this only 4 stars because there are some glaring grammatical and spelling errors littered throughout the book that distracted from the narrative. Extremely understandable and minor errors but nonetheless, a good editor should have caught these. (PS Natalie if you need a new editor for your reprint… I am available :) )
—
That said, I gave this only 4 stars because there are some glaring grammatical and spelling errors littered throughout the book that distracted from the narrative. Extremely understandable and minor errors but nonetheless, a good editor should have caught these. (PS Natalie if you need a new editor for your reprint… I am available :) )
January 17, 2022
“There is nothing that can defy death as much as laughter. Death trembles at it, unable to comprehend.”
To say Sierra’s writing is divine is an understatement.
Sophisticated, poignant, utterly thought-provoking is her prose, and every line of this story had me engrossed right from the very first page. I was not planning on reading this in one sitting but by the time I reached the end and closed this book, half the day was gone! The story devoured me with its characters, and the writing was indeed hypnotic, leaving you hanging onto every single word.
The flow of the novel mirrors the main character Charlie’s state of mind, with the story starting off in a linear fashion, only for her mind and reality to unravel as her toxic relationship with the poisonous boygod leeches into her blood. I deeply enjoyed the almost surreal quality the novel takes on in its latter half, and its nuanced, heart-rending exploration of an unsound mind being shaped like clay in the hands of an abusive relationship.
The world is rich and the setting evokes a nostalgia for a not-so-distant past, those sprinklings of Charlie’s prophetic visions regarding the technology of the future imbuing the story with a unique mythological flavor, deepened by the reference to Apollo and Cassandra of Greek antiquity, and tied up perfectly with that Sisyphean ending.
I’m in love with Sierra’s writing, her rich characters, and her brilliant ability to conjure up and mythologize the 1990s—I’ll eagerly be awaiting whatever she writes next.
To say Sierra’s writing is divine is an understatement.
Sophisticated, poignant, utterly thought-provoking is her prose, and every line of this story had me engrossed right from the very first page. I was not planning on reading this in one sitting but by the time I reached the end and closed this book, half the day was gone! The story devoured me with its characters, and the writing was indeed hypnotic, leaving you hanging onto every single word.
The flow of the novel mirrors the main character Charlie’s state of mind, with the story starting off in a linear fashion, only for her mind and reality to unravel as her toxic relationship with the poisonous boygod leeches into her blood. I deeply enjoyed the almost surreal quality the novel takes on in its latter half, and its nuanced, heart-rending exploration of an unsound mind being shaped like clay in the hands of an abusive relationship.
The world is rich and the setting evokes a nostalgia for a not-so-distant past, those sprinklings of Charlie’s prophetic visions regarding the technology of the future imbuing the story with a unique mythological flavor, deepened by the reference to Apollo and Cassandra of Greek antiquity, and tied up perfectly with that Sisyphean ending.
I’m in love with Sierra’s writing, her rich characters, and her brilliant ability to conjure up and mythologize the 1990s—I’ll eagerly be awaiting whatever she writes next.
May 1, 2024
I should preface this by saying that I don’t usually read books like these. This was a wrapped book at Barnes & Noble that I bought on a whim (the wrapping told me it reads like Fade Into You by Mazzy Star, can you blame me?).
Reading this book felt like dreaming. You know when you’re dreaming, and things are just constantly happening with no pauses for you to digest anything (I mean you can’t really form coherent thoughts in dreams because you’re not awake but you get my point)? That’s what this book feels like.
There aren’t any chapter breaks, and I felt like I needed a clear break between scenes. That’s just my opinion. I feel like a book is more reader-friendly if there are chapter breaks.
Some parts are very vaguely written, some verbose, which made some parts of the book confusing for me, but the book was interesting. I wish they were more clear, but maybe that was on purpose. Maybe Sierra wanted to show us the mind of a person with a schizoaffective disorder. In that case, she succeeded.
Even if you don’t understand what’s happening, you’ll definitely be able to understand how the characters feel. Sierra describes Charlie’s thoughts and feelings so beautifully and deliberately. I felt very intrusive reading this book.
Overall, a decent read. I’m wavering between 3 and 4 stars.
Reading this book felt like dreaming. You know when you’re dreaming, and things are just constantly happening with no pauses for you to digest anything (I mean you can’t really form coherent thoughts in dreams because you’re not awake but you get my point)? That’s what this book feels like.
There aren’t any chapter breaks, and I felt like I needed a clear break between scenes. That’s just my opinion. I feel like a book is more reader-friendly if there are chapter breaks.
Some parts are very vaguely written, some verbose, which made some parts of the book confusing for me, but the book was interesting. I wish they were more clear, but maybe that was on purpose. Maybe Sierra wanted to show us the mind of a person with a schizoaffective disorder. In that case, she succeeded.
Even if you don’t understand what’s happening, you’ll definitely be able to understand how the characters feel. Sierra describes Charlie’s thoughts and feelings so beautifully and deliberately. I felt very intrusive reading this book.
Overall, a decent read. I’m wavering between 3 and 4 stars.
April 5, 2023
Words cannot express just how much this book pushed its way into my soul and made me feel as though every single emotion and thought written was legitimately my own. It's beautifully written and it will stick with me for years to come.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews