Review: Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

Title: Sisterhood Everlasting
Author: Ann Brashares
Publisher: Random House
Published Date: June 14, 2011
Source: Received from the publisher (this did not effect my review)

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You loved the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books (Warning: This book is probably not a great choice for someone who has never read any of the books!)
• You like stories of strong friendships

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Despite having jobs and men that they love, each knows that something is missing: the closeness that once sustained them. Carmen is a successful actress in New York, engaged to be married, but misses her friends. Lena finds solace in her art, teaching in Rhode Island, but still thinks of Kostos and the road she didn’t take. Bridget lives with her longtime boyfriend, Eric, in San Francisco, and though a part of her wants to settle down, a bigger part can’t seem to shed her old restlessness.

Then Tibby reaches out to bridge the distance, sending the others plane tickets for a reunion that they all breathlessly await. And indeed, it will change their lives forever—but in ways that none of them could ever have expected.

As moving and life-changing as an encounter with long-lost best friends, Sisterhood Everlasting is a powerful story about growing up, losing your way, and finding the courage to create a new one."

My Two Cents:

Wow, just wow, this book sort of blew me away. I had just re-read all four of the previous Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books last year. I loved the entire series. It was such a good series of books on the absolute and sometimes magical power of friendship. I was anxious to catch up with some of my favorite characters from the series in Sisterhood Everlasting. In this book, all of the characters are now just a couple years older than me. 


This book has a significantly different tone than the previous books in the series. It's definitely more serious and heaps more heavy. The first four books in the series are warm, cozy stories of close friendships. I realize that there are a lot of cases in life of friendships that we sort of grow out of but it was hard to see that between Tibby, Bee, Carmen and Lena since they had always been so fantastically close. This book was definitely real in that way, almost unnervingly real. 


Once I got to the first major twist in the book (which I will not disclose in this book to avoid spoiling the story), I couldn't put the book down. I had to know exactly what happened and why things in the girls' worlds were the way that they were. 


I did like this book even though the tone of it is vastly different than the first four books when the main characters are just teens. Did the book give me a feeling of closure for the series? Definitely. This book was hard to read just because I loved the characters so much after reading the rest of the series and it's hard to see things that aren't so great happen to characters you really care for.  I think this is a fitting end to the series.


Bottom line: If you enjoyed this series, do pick up the book. While it's not as light as the other books, it's a great end to the series.


My Review:
3 out of 5 stars