The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

A long, hot summer

Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is not having a good summer. Jason, her brainy and driven boyfriend, will be at camp all summer and she is filling in for him at the library's information desk. Jason's coworkers are degrading to her and out right cruel most times. And Macy and her Mom are stil struggling with their grief over her father's sudden and unexpected death eighteen months earlier. Things go from bad to worse when after telling Jason she loves him in an e-mail, he e-mails back with the suggestion that they take a break over the summer and see if their priorities are the same at the beginning of their senior year.

At an open house for her mother's latest housing development, Macy meets the Wish Catering crew. Monica or Monotone is quiet while Kristy Palmetto wants to go someplace where no one knows her and reinvent herself. Delia, who owns Wish, is pregnant, spastic, forgetful and believes "everything happens for a reason." And then there are Delia's nephews, brothers Bert and Wes. Bert has just gotten his driver's license and bought a surplused ambulance to drive around. Wes is the former reform school student and budding artist who holds the gang together

Macy soon joins the Wish crew and begins working with them. As the summer progresses, Macy learns that no one can be perfect and finds herself and her goals in life changing. But what happens when Macy's mother doesn't like the changes in her daughter or her new friends? And what part in Macy's new attitude does Wes play? Can Macy and her mother finally grieve her father's death?