Well written with moments of emotional intensity. Marianne was a very believable tragic character, unable to process and deal with her feelings while swept up in the contrast between her stifling parents and the swinging sixties. I understand this was probably intentional, but almost all the high impact moments seemed to be over too soon. The tragedy that hits Marianne and Hugo, and the final reveal about Simon, being the key ones. I'd have loved a clearer window into Simon's feelings.

 Absolutely & Forever opens with 15 year old Marianne falling head over heels for 18 year old Simon. She’s naive, alternately ignored and belittled by her parents, and her upbringing has been typical for an upper middle class girl from rural England in the 1950s. She eagerly imagines her future life with Simon but, alas, it’s not to be. He fails his exam to enter Oxford and his ashamed family exiles him to Paris, where he eventually marries. Marianne never forgets him or gets over this first love, although she too goes on to marry. In many ways she is a frustrating character, what with her fixation on Simon and her seeming lack of interest or ambition in any aspect of her life. But that is very much the point of this novel. If you ignore girls, praising them only when they are polite or pretty, and then only offer them the role of wife and mother as women it is not surprising that some drift through life, seemingly vacuous and lacking in agency. Marianne is a product of her upbringing and her times, a logical outcome and a cautionary tale. Despite my frustration with her I recognised the point the author was making through her and my interest in her story never wandered. Tremain’s writing which was quietly captivating ensured that I stayed fully engaged with the story. She captured the milieu of upper middle class England from the 1950s to 1970s brilliantly with plenty of precise physical details and a perfect encapsulation of common attitudes and beliefs, as well as reflecting the changes and challenges that occurred. Younger Marianne did irritate me but by the novel’s end she was showing signs of growth, working towards a future she envisioned for herself. I appreciated this character arc, partly a reflection of changing times but also partly prompted by Petronella. She was my favourite character for refusing to be limited by society’s expectations and for her plain talking ways. I also had a soft spot for Anthracite, and enjoyed many aspects of the dynamic between him and Marianne. I saw scope for them to grow and evolve together while recognising that was going to be an unlikely outcome. 
Absolutely & Forever works as both a period piece and a character study. It’s also a salutary reminder not to look at the past through rose-tinted lenses, to temper our nostalgia for the “good old days” with a recognition of the way societal norms of the time limited people’s development. And Marianne, a well-off white woman, was in many ways privileged. For others, including people of colour, the negative impact of societal norms was much greater.