Sisterhood Everlasting (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Book 6) [Hardcover]

Ann Brashares (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 14, 2011

Return to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants . . . ten years later.
 
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Brashares comes the welcome return of the characters whose friendship became a touchstone for a generation. Now 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 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Letter from Author Ann Brashares
Dear Readers,

When I started writing about the Sisterhood ten years ago, I wanted to create characters with big, open-ended lives--girls who wouldn't fit into a single novel. At the same time, I wanted to tell a proper story with a beginning, middle, and end. So I planned a four-book sequence to tell that story. And as I got to the end, I realized I was ready for the end of that story, but not remotely ready for the end of the characters. They were only nineteen, after all. They had so much life ahead of them! I didn't want to miss it. Would their friendship survive adulthood? Who, if anyone, would they marry? What about having babies? What career would Carmen choose? Would "someday" ever come for Lena and Kostos?

I promised myself that after taking a break from them and trying out some other things I would come back and find them later in their lives. So that's what I've done in Sisterhood Everlasting. I've rediscovered Carmen, Lena, Bridget, and Tibby on the cusp of their thirtieth birthdays. Though it felt right to be away--all of us off doing our different things--it felt wonderful to come back together. I don't think I would have appreciated the characters as much without the hiatus, and I hope the characters feel the same. I discovered I have certain ways of thinking and writing that are unique to those girls, and I had really missed them while I was away.

If you are familiar with the girls of the Sisterhood, I hope you will enjoy the reunion as much as I have. If you are coming to them for the first time, I hope you will find pleasure in the introduction.

So welcome (back) to the Sisterhood. We've missed you.

XO,

Ann

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review

Praise for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
 
“Funny, perceptive, and moving.”—USA Today
 
“A feel-good novel of substance.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (June 14, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385521227
• ISBN-13: 978-0385521222
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.2 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (233 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #191,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ann Brashares is the bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, Girls in Pants, Forever in Blue, The Last Summer (of You and Me), and My Name is Memory.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 96 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars heartbreakingly beautiful June 16, 2011

By happygolucky0512

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Having read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books as a teenager, I was excited to read about the girls' lives as adults. In actually reading the book, I found myself heartbroken- not because I was disappointed in the novel, but because what I found waiting for me in the four characters to whom I had formed such an attachment was by no means a "happily ever after." It is, though, a beautiful story very much like life: full of unexpected turns, suffering, triumph and love.

Some reviewers have leveled criticism about the continuity of the characters, claiming that the Lena, Bee, Carmen and Tibby from the first four novels are not the same four women we meet in Sisterhood Everlasting. My simple responses to that is I should hope not! Ten years changes people, and growing up changes people. At their cores, the girls are still the same: Carmen has big dreams and plenty of sass, Bee is a free spirit fighting with her emotions, Lena is quiet and doesn't fully recognize her own worth, and Tibby is insightful and challenging. It is their circumstances that have shifted, and it is in this that I think some readers are struggling. The lives we find the four girls leading don't necessarily match up with what we wanted for them after reading the first four books in the series. The problem, then, is foiled expectations rather than discontinuous characterization.

The novel itself is well written and moving, and Brashares manages to capture some of the most beautiful and some of the most painful moments of life in rather stunning completeness. Despite the sadness, there is also a tremendous sense of joy, and most of all, an overwhelming sense of love. Brilliant read, highly recommended!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Bittersweet Novel June 20, 2011

By Bookreporter

Format:Hardcover

Ann Brashares, who wrote four insanely popular books about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (two of which were made into equally popular movies), has countless fans. I imagine she also receives a lot of fan mail, and I'd wager that a great deal of it asks the questions "But what happened to Carmen, Lena, Tibby and Bridget next? Did they fall in love, get married, have children? Most importantly, did they stay friends forever?" These kinds of questions gain urgency as fans --- those who were young teens when THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS was first published in 2001 --- are now approaching their mid-20s themselves.

Now, in SISTERHOOD EVERLASTING, Brashares answers those burning questions with a bittersweet novel that may have some readers wishing the Sisterhood could have stayed teens forever and others reveling in this new chapter, likely with a rapidly depleted box of tissues at their side. The book, which is sensibly being marketed to adults, opens with the four lifelong friends on the verge of turning 30. Although they're all in relationships, none of them are married. And even though they're still friends, nothing matches the special kind of connection they shared in their adolescence.

Especially worrying is Tibby, who up and left the country without a warning, relocating to Australia with her long-time boyfriend Brian without even giving Carmen, Bridget and Lena a chance to give her a proper sendoff. Since then, she's been uncharacteristically silent, leaving Carmen (a glamorous television star), Lena (a moderately successful artist) and Bridget (the free spirit of the bunch) to wonder what's going on with their increasingly distant friend.

So when Tibby sends each of them an invitation to meet at Lena's family's home in Greece, the old Sisterhood jumps at the chance for a reunion. But then tragedy strikes, and those who survive are left reeling, asking themselves how well they really know each other --- and how they can possibly move forward without one of their own.

SISTERHOOD EVERLASTING likely will be read almost exclusively by those countless fans who first encountered these four fast friends in the YA series. That's just as well, since the novel, although certainly poignant in its own right, would lose significant emotional intensity for those who don't feel (at least a little) like they've grown up alongside Carmen and company. Unlike the previous books for young people, SISTERHOOD EVERLASTING jumps from character to character in brief vignettes rather than longer, developed stories. The result is perhaps a more integrated narrative, but also one that can seem choppy and disjointed.

The characters' emotional responses to tragic loss seem, at times, somewhat out of joint with what might be expected as realistic responses to grief. That said, the impact of their grief on each of their lives --- lives that had seemed so settled but are apparently anything but --- rings true, and anyone who has read the first four books and can get through the last chapter of SISTERHOOD EVERLASTING with dry eyes is a more stoic soul than me. "Did they stay friends forever?" Fans will have to wonder no more, and Brashares's literary response will satisfy readers longing for "just one more" story about their favorite fictional friends.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Difficult, but worth it. June 19, 2011

By Laura OC

Format:Hardcover

While I like most readers enjoyed growing up with Lena, Carmen, Bridget, and Tibby throughout the first four sisterhood books, the fifth addition to the series makes the story real and even more relatable for me. Sisterhood Everlasting shows us the consequences and joys of life decisions and that while a friendship between girls may be undeniably strong, it cannot fix all problems.

Ann Brashares includes her readers in the struggle of each of the girls, and I personally felt closer to each character after finishing the novel. The story lines and plot is by no means light and can be emotionally difficult to read at times, but it is not impossible, and almost necessary to absorb if you truly want to understand the story and the characters. Brashares makes you want to jump inside the book and shake each of the girls while simultaneously yelling "What are you doing with your life?!", which is a frustratingly realistic experience.

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.