Although Astro 3 quizzes, river-jumping excursions and gelato shop trips have made my summer reading more sparse than usual, I did manage to treat myself to a reading of the final installment of Ann Brashares's "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series, "Sisterhood Everlasting."
I must admit that I was a bit skeptical at first. Although as a preteen I devoured the first books chronicling the teenage years of Bridget, Carmen, Lena and Tibby, I was unsure if I a bit older and slightly more cynical would be as enthralled by the new stories of the Sisterhood.
Yet, as I began to read "Sisterhood Everlasting," I found myself once again engrossed in Brashares's storyline, moved by her prose and touched by her characters.
Brashares certainly caters to her aging audience in her new novel, which was released earlier this summer. She is well aware that the members of the generation who followed the series as 12-year-olds those who made "traveling pants" of their own with their friends and who identified with Bridget's carefree liveliness, Lena's quiet nature, Tibby's artsy edge or Carmen's passionate temper have grown up.
"Sisterhood Everlasting" opens with descriptions of the lives of the characters 10 years after the conclusion of the fourth book. Readers will not be surprised to know that Carmen is an actress in New York, Lena is an art teacher in Providence, Tibby is in Australia with her boyfriend Brian and Bridget is an adventurous free spirit in California.
The early chapters in the novel seem to consist of trite, "Where are they now?" type scenes ("Harry Potter" epilogue, anyone?). However, within the first hundred pages, Brashares reveals a shocking tragedy no spoilers, sorry that immediately jars readers and hooks them into the story.
The rest of the novel chronicles the turmoil the girls experience as they deal with that tragedy and confront issues that many young adults deal with, such as work, marriage, pregnancy and romance.
By interweaving the everyday struggles of the girls into the main plotline, Brashares is careful to allow her now older readers to continue to relate to the characters they once idolized as kids.
"Sisterhood Everlasting" definitely had its corny moments. At the beginning of the novel, the members of the Sisterhood lament how they have fallen apart over the years and how they each are incomplete without the others.
At the end of the novel, Carmen, the narrator of the epilogue, writes, "Together or apart, no matter how far apart, we live in one another. We go on together."
Although Brashares's prose lacked subtlety in some moments, I must bashfully admit that I became teary-eyed in Dirt Cowboy as I read the final chapters, unable to resist the heartwarming effects of the scenes of friendship and happiness in the fifth novel.
This final installment provides fitting closure for Brashares's beloved series and will move the generation of girls who have followed the lives of Bridget, Carmen, Lena and Tibby from the beginning.
