Sisterhood Everlastingby Ann Brashares

Published in 2011. 349 pages.


As a big fan of Ann Brashares' Traveling Pants series - the fourth book of which I reviewed here - I found this sequel wonderful!

Picking up about ten years after the series ended but following the same format of varying viewpoints interspersed with quotes, the book does a fabulous job of putting the reader back into the minds and lives of the members of the sisterhood. I laughed, I cried, I feared, I cheered. I'm so glad to have been able to visit Carmen, Bridget, Tibby, and Lena again!

Here is a passage I really love:

Maybe you think you'll be entitled to more happiness later by forgoing all of it now, but it doesn't work that way. Happiness takes as much practice as unhappiness does. It's by living that you live more. By waiting you wait more. Every waiting day makes your life a little less. Every lonely day makes you a little smaller. Every day you put off your life makes you less capable of living it. [pages 276-277]

I love, love the cover of the book too!

2011.49

Library Loot in July - Part 1

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg and Claire to encourage bloggers to share what they’ve checked out from the library.



I already have quite a hefty to-read pile on my nightstand, but does that stop me from picking up some more books from the library? Uh, no.

Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith
(This is one of The Contemps. Isn't that cover adorable?)

Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler
(This is also one of The Contemps.)

Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard
(This is one of The Contemps too.)

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan
(I read raidergirl3's review of this one and just had to get it!)

Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt
(Shelley at Book Clutter was raving about this one on Facebook!)

One Crazy Summer by Rita Garcia-Williams
(This one is a 2011 Newbery Honor Book,
as well as the recipient of a number of other awards!)

The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta
(I am thrilled that this sequel to Saving Francesca
has recently been published in the U.S.)

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares
(I'm so excited to visit Tibby, Carmen, Bridget, and Lena again!)

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
(YA author Gayle Forman picked this one as one of her five "The Year's Best Teen Reads" for NPR last December. I started "reading" the audiobook version during my commute this week.)

More Six-Word Reviews

3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows
by Ann Brashares
Published in 2009.
Audiobook read by Kimberly Farr.

The power of (younger) sisterhood redux!
2011.23

One Thousand White Women:
The Journals of May Dodd
by Jim Fergus
Published in 1998.
Audiobook narrated by Laura Hicks,
with introduction and epilogue by Erik Steele.

Intriguing premise but too much bodice-ripping.
2011.33

Code Orange by Caroline B. Cooney
Published in 2005. 200 pages.

Nearly perfect for middle grade boys.
2011.43

The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares

Published in 2007. 306 pages.


A big fan of Ann Brashares' series The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, I was thrilled when a publicist working with Brashares contacted me about reading and reviewing her new adult novel The Last Summer (of You and Me). I'm slower getting it read than I had hoped - it was released on June 5 - but I finished it today and wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it!

Like the girls of the Traveling Pants series, the main characters of this novel were both endearing to me and also each gave me something with which to identify. Two sisters, Riley and Alice, and their life-long friend, Paul, Alice was the one to which I related most - perhaps partially because of her name, and also because she was the "smart one" of the sisters. The plot also focuses much on Alice's feelings about growing up - and though I'm a bit older than 21 (okay, a lot older!), I could relate so well to much of her experience. One interesting tidbit was discovering that Alice liked Paul to call her by name, a "quirk" of mine that I never realized anyone else shared.

As with her young adult books, Brashares described well the point of view of each character, and I came to feel that I know them. I liked the switching of viewpoints, especially in seeing how more than one person viewed the same events, and I think Brashares uses this technique well. Another fun aspect of the book was the creative chapter titles, including "You'll Turn Out Ordinary If You're Not Careful" and "Cryogenics."

Brashares has a nice way of putting into words some great insights. Two of my favorites were these: Alice's realization, about half way through the book, that "unexpected things were not always bad" (p. 187), and Paul's observation, even later in the novel, that "the idea of love was always easier than the practice of it" (p. 274).

The Last Summer (of You and Me) is a great summer read - and, in fact, I read it while on vacation, partly on the beach. I'm hoping Brashares will write another adult novel.

2007.33

Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares

Published in 2007. 384 pages.

I love Carmen, Bridget, Tibby, and Lena! I can relate a little to each one of them (with Tibby being most like me in personality, then Carmen, then Bridget, and then Lena). I love their Sisterhood - and I celebrate the power that comes from women being together. I was very excited to read about "one last, glorious summer" for the traveling pants. And I did enjoy the book!

I did have a major disappointment, however, with the emphasis on the sexual relationships of the girls. When, in the first book, Bridget lost her virginity to Eric at soccer camp, I defended the book as being worthwhile reading for teens because Brashares dealt with Bee's subsequent feelings in a realistic manner. With the amount of sex going on in this book, however, I was sometimes uncomfortable - although I will admit that Brashares still doesn't paint all of it as romantic and "happily ever after." But it seems to me that she also is giving the message that by the time a girl is done with her freshman year in college, it's time for her to be having sex, with absolutely no suggestion that waiting until marriage is even an option. I particularly worry about younger readers of this series - eleven-year-olds like my daughter Sugar Plum, for instance - who certainly aren't ready for the kind of detail that Brashares provides.

On a positive note, though, I found the conclusion of the novel to be satisfying - though I will certainly miss these girls - and I was pleased that Brashares continued with the format of the previous books - switching perspective among the four girls throughout and inserting poignant or funny comments or quotations between chapters. Among my favorites of those are these:

• Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. -Steven Wright
• It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. -Henry David Thoreau
• In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -Albert Camus
• You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad. -Aldous Huxley
• Bouncing is for balls. -Tibby Rollins

If you've read any of the Traveling Pants books, I'd like to know which of the girls you identify with most.

2007.8