This Could Be Forever by Ebony LaDelle: Review
Welcome to my review of This Could Be Forever by Ebony LaDelle! I loved her debut novel, Love Radio, so I was really looking forward to this one.
Title: This Could Be Forever
Author: Ebony LaDelle
Genre: YA Romance
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Pub Date: 05/20/25
Description
This compelling and complex romance about love across cultures follows a Black girl and Brown boy who find themselves—and each other—while pursuing their passions the summer before college.
Deja’s got a plan. The first in her large family to go to college, she wants to study chemistry and sell natural skin care products, like the ones she already creates from plants grown on her family’s North Carolina farm. It all starts with the Onward Bound summer program at the University of Maryland, the summer before school officially starts.
Raja’s got a dream. His traditional Nepali parents want him to study engineering and settle down in an arranged marriage, but his passion is art, and he wants to open his own tattoo parlor one day. In the meantime, he’s apprenticing at a tattoo shop in College Park, Maryland.
When Deja walks into the shop where Raja’s working, they both start crushing hard—over the course of the summer, they fall more and more deeply for one another. But the closer they get and the more their lives entwine, the more they find that dating someone who doesn’t match your parents’ expectations is harder than they ever imagined.
Can they bridge the divide between the vision their families have for their futures and the lives—and love—that are starting to feel like destiny?
Review
The way Ebony LaDelle writes young love needs to be studied. This Could Be Forever had me cheesing so hard and feeling all the feels. I feel like a lot of interracial romances involve a white person, and since whiteness is so prevalent in the US, there’s usually not the same clashing of cultures that was portrayed in this book with a Black FMC and a Nepali MMC.
I loved how much the story highlighted how sometimes there are forces stronger than love that can keep people apart, but there’s also freedom and strength in loving who you want to love without bending to others’ wills. Deja and Raja were different, and yet they fit together so well, and I loved their instant connection. I also loved how they fought for each other, even when it was hard and even when it required going against their family’s wishes. And that applied to more than just a relationship.
The story worked really well with it being right before the characters started college because it’s a time when you’re getting to make so many choices for yourself, and it allowed the characters to really dig deep into what they wanted, not just what would make their families happy.
While this book didn’t shy away from the struggles of interracial and intercultural dating, it also shone a light on how to stand up for yourself and the people you love, have hard conversations, and share your culture with others. I need another romance book from Ebony expeditiously.
*Thank you to the publisher for the finished copy. All opinions are my own.*
Author
Ebony LaDelle is the author of Love Radio—which was People magazine’s best book of the summer, a 2023 Audie Award Finalist, a 2023 Michigan Notable Book, and was featured on the Today show—and is the editor of the forthcoming romance anthology, You’ve Got a Place Here, Too. Prior to being an author, Ebony was a brand marketing director in book publishing and worked at Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, among others.
Where to Buy
Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Amazon
