Rating: 
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It is well-written and the characters are great. A very appealing combination. A few wonderful reviews ahead of mine tell the reader what the story is about, so I won't, but I will tell you, this book is a keeper. (Highly Recommended!)John Savoy
Savoy International
Motion Pictures, Inc.
Rating:
Summary: A great combination of history and magic
Review: Pete Hamill is a legend of New York, and FOREVER feels very much like his magnum opus. It's a wonderfully well thought-out and well researched history of New York City as told through the eyes of one fictional character. Cormac O'Connor, a young 18th Century Irishman, through an accident in the street and a colision with a mystical destiny finds himself travelling to make a new life in America in the 1740s. Here, he becomes embroiled in a quest for justice, power and vengeance against the man who drove him from Ireland. After an encounter with a powerful shaman, Cormac finds himself granted a power that can be the greatest blessing or the darkest curse...immortality. the only condition is that he never leave Manhattan Island. The following 250 years trace Cormac as he witnesses and becomes part of the development of NYC. Watching him through the slave revolt, the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the great New York fire, the nineteenth century boomtimes and the tragic events of September 11th, we see Cormac experience life's great emotions, love, loss, success and failure. Combining a beautiful telling of Celtic mythology with a rich and vibrant civic history, Pete Hamill has created two truly remarkable characters...one is Cormac o'Connor and the other is the City of New York. Read FOREVER and be glad that you did. It is certainly worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: 17yearold Review of Forever
Review: I'm a 17 year old high school student and here is my review of Forever.
Young Cormac O'Connor, for most his life, thought he was a part of good Christian family, but he soon learned that this was a shroud to his true identity, a Celtic. With the death of his family and everything he ever knew Cormac must travel to America to avenge the death, and honor, of his family.
Forever can be explained in the simple seven letter word of the title. This book, at first, seemed to be about wars and their relationship with New York, but it slowly evolved into the willy-nilly adventures of the never dieing Cormac O'Connor. Anyone will start to wonder how random events connect in some sort of deeper meaning of this novel, and why the relationships between characters are never strongly established and end abruptly with barley a resolution or reason for existence. Also the sudden jumps, which skip any interesting event, in time throughout the book makes one wonder, is a book about immortality worth reading?
Forever is filled with numerous characters but none of whom are memorable. The characters last for twenty pages and then drift into the abyss where the plot of this book went. At one point in the book Cormac meetings George Washington, the president not the peanut guy, and ask him if he will end slavery, and Washington simply doesn't reply. You think the book will pick up here but it doesn't. Slavery is never mentioned again, but the arbitrary death of a thieving aristocrat, Tweet, is glorified during the time period which the Civil War was being fought.
Sadly enough there is no developments in this book past the first hundred pages of this six hundred page book. Maybe there are no developments because there is no plot. This book is the arrangement of a thousand-and-one small bits of stories thrown together with no connection other than they are written in the same book. Hopefully this is the author trying to give a message; life is dull.
All of this brings up one question; can you really call this a book? I'm afraid not. It is more of an assembly of meaningless stories through the eyes of a withdrawn young man, Cormac. From the tone of the book Cormac is as tired of life as anyone with be of reading this 600 page book.
Rating: 
Summary: It was okay, but possibly not worth the time needed.
Review: I felt that the story had a great build in the first half of the book, but after the initial section of his life (the point up until Cormac attains eternal life), the story falls short. The author skips time in big sections and doesn't match the time devoted to the beginning to the other sections of time. The historical aspect and views of America in the past in current vernacular makes it a good historical novel, but the magical parts are hard to believe and you are left wondering about characters that played major parts in the protagonists life. The ending is greatly disappointing for its lack of direction, but even with all of its faults, it is quite readable and the setting is interesting enough to keep the reader reading.
Rating:
Summary: Fell short
Review: It had promise. I read through it hopeing it'd get better. But Cormac just didn't come to life. Even before he turned immortal I just couldn't get a feel for him, he felt more like a random body tossed in and used to tell the stories around him. Which could have worked but the stories around him failed to be as interesting as they should have been. The one charecter that captured my attention (Mary Burton) was gone almost just as quickly, and it seems like Cormac never feels anything. Except for when it's extream grief and need for revenge. Could have been better. Much Better. But if somone else (or even the same author) gave it another shot I'd read it.
Rating: 
Summary: a wonderful historical novel.
Review: If I could, I would give this 41/2 stars. it held my interest all the way through. Hamill could have devoted more time on the early and mid twentieth century. After being disappointed by his ending in a previous novel, I was very satified with this one. It was worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Annoying, Boring, Crap.
Review: Noticed how I cleverly used ABC in the title of my review. Those are the first 3 letters in the alphabet! Get it. That's about how clever Forever is. I became so annoyed with this boring book that I abandonded it somewhere in Thailand. It was the last book I brought on my trip, but, after a few hundred pages, I felt no book was better than this book. If you like books about a person who has a telepathic relationship with his horse and dog and vice versa, then this book is for you.
I rarely review books on Amazon, but this book was such a waste of money, time and paper that I felt it my duty to warn fellow readers. If you like children's books, then read one of those, not this fantastical Easy Cheese.
Rating: 
Summary: More episodic than epic.
Review: As many other reviewers have said, the idea is intriguing. Could have made for a great historical epic. I loved "Snow In August," a fantasy full of authenticity ... something about "Forever" didn't seem quite so authentic. I had doubts early on when Cormac's father suddenly told "Robert" that he was a Celt named Cormac O'Connor -- especially because what his father described sounded more like contemporary New Age 'Celtic paganism' (i.e. post-1950) than the multi-faceted warrior culture that Hamill seems to want it to be. A lot of things about the family seemed out-of-place in 18th Century Ireland. I also thought that it should have started with Cormac's desire for revenge, and that Hamill should have sent him to America right away.
"Snow In August" was a believable fantasy; this wasn't.
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Summary: A Wee Bit o 'NYC History
Review: I've always liked Pete Hamill, and find that most people either do or don't with not much room for in between. This book was some work to get into. I started and quit a few times. It is not a quick read on the beach. But the effort is well-rewarded. This is a fascinating glimpse into a couple of hundred years of the immigration to and history of New York. It is a thorougly implausible plot--a young man who lives forever so long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan-- but it is a riveting story of the many stages of the developpment of New York. I came away 1) not wanting the book to end, and 2) thirsting to read a few of the classic historical volumes recommended by PH.
Rating:
Summary: Great Beginning, poor middle - didn't finish it
Review: This was my first Peter Hamill book. I had heard much good stuff on reviews about this author. I choose the book at random, well mostly at random - i was interested in the NewYork theme. I was overjoyed when i read the first 39 chapters - don't get excited that was only 150 pages!. I was immersed in the story and I loved the North or Ireland story of growing up in south Belfast many years ago. A place I have spent many years in myself. When the story moves to NY the pace of the story changes and the quality of the plot changes with it. I got really bored with Cormac the reporter theme. Maybe it was my own fault for enjoying the Irish theme too much and not wanting it to change. Maybe I have no patience. Either way I didn't finish it and donated the book to my work book club. With so much choice of books today I moved on.
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