Thursday, July 14, 2011

BOOK REVIEW: Sisterhood Everlasting Book 5

Title: Sisterhood Everlasting Book 5


Author: Ann Brashares

Publisher: Random House

RRP: $29.95

ISBN: 9781742751245

Release Date: July 2011



Description:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Brashares, the fifth instalment in the blockbuster Sisterhood series.

DESCRIPTION OF BOOK

Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget have grown up, starting their lives on their own. And though the jeans they shared are long gone, the sisterhood is everlasting.



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 long-time 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.



Review:

If you read and enjoyed the young adult "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" books, this grown-up adult sequel is a must. "Sisterhood Everlasting" by Ann Brashares is the fifth book in the Sisterhood series--which followed the lives of four friends Lena, Bridget, Tibby, and Carmen. While the initial books were based on their young adult years, "Sisterhood Everlasting" is based on their grown up years--with the four friends nearing thirty.

In their grown up lives: Carmen works as a TV actress in New York City and is engaged to ABC executive Jones. Lena lives in Providence, Rhode Island and teaches art classes, while painting and occasionally pining away for her former flame and nowadays successful Greek businessman living in London, Kostos. Bridget, who has yet to find her calling in life, lives in sunny San Francisco with her long-term boyfriend Erik, who works as an immigration worker. Tibby has re-located to Australia because of her boyfriend Brian's job, and hardly communicates with the rest of the friends.

Everything changes when Lena, Bridget, and Carmen receive a letter from Tibby inviting them all to meet up in Santorini, Greece (the birthplace of Lena's family, the place where she met Kostos, and also the place where the Sisterhood had some meaningful moments in the past) for a week of catching up. Only nothing goes as expected.

Meanwhile - beware it will absolutely break your heart... but it will help you put the pieces back together in the end.

The book may not be the perfect storybook ending that many readers may have once desired for Lena, Carmen, Bridget, and Tibby (myself previously included), but after experiencing the fifth novel, I see why it was necessary. The girls are grown up and I am assuming most of the readers are as well, so grown up issues, struggles, and decisions seems logical and Brashares beautifully includes and interprets these in the novel. Happy is a relative term, and I definitely did not feel that way during or after my reading, but I was more than satisfied. This is a must read for any individual who has followed the girls growth throughout the first four novels, but I would not recommend this novel on its own. Read the first four and then you will not be disappointed.

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