Sisterhood Everlasting (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants): A Novel (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) [Paperback]

Ann Brashares (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2012 | Series: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Four friends
One sisterhood
Ten years later, the story continues

On the cusp of turning thirty, Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget are now living separate lives, out on their own. Yet 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.
 
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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

“A deftly told narrative of finding one’s adult self.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“[Ann] Brashares nimbly ages her characters, nicely capturing late- twentysomething concerns about marriage, motherhood, and careers as well as love’s enduring power.”—Booklist
 
“Poignant . . . Brashares’s literary response will satisfy readers longing for ‘just one more’ story about their favorite fictional friends.”—Bookreporter.com
 
“Brashares expertly taps into the difficulties of carrying childhood friendship into the trials of adulthood.”—Library Journal
 
“Touching . . . resonant with female friendship.”—The Washington Post

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 6, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385521235
• ISBN-13: 978-0385521239
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but..., June 23, 2011

By 

Rosalind Davis (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Sisterhood Everlasting (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants): A Novel (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) (Kindle Edition)

Ann Brashares is an excellent writer. I have to say that first, because it's the strength of her prose that carries this novel, in spite of its flaws. If anyone with less skill with language had written this, it'd fall down into the three- or two-star region, because it has some *major* problems on a plot and character development level. However, it really is beautifully written, and I'm glad I read it; like all the books in the series, it's sad, but more than that, it's cathartic, which is a token to Brashares's ability to put her characters' inner lives into words, and to allow us to experience their suffering and healing with them.

But I have two really fundamental problems with the plot, one of which is more significant than the other. Doing my best to explain without spoilers, the less significant problem is that the romantic roadmaps that Brashares has laid out for three of these four women, who are my age, of my generation, are improbable. Not implausible; just improbable. Most of the women I know, right here with me on the cusp of thirty, have romantic lives that much more strongly resemble Brashares's odd woman out, and it just...it just doesn't ring true to me. It's possible that there is a group of four women out there in which three of them have undergone the same kind of romantic development, but its statistical improbability reduces the everywoman quality that made these women so charming as girls. The way Brashares has developed the romantic lives of her characters makes this novel seem more like a young adult book, and not a particularly sophisticated one, but the kinds of loss and uncertainty she deals with elsewhere in the book are genuinely the concerns of people in their late twenties, and would probably not be of interest to most teenagers. So, this is either an unsophisticated work of adult fiction, or a book for young adults with an unusual interest in the lives of the olds, which sort of makes it hard to say what age it's intended for. This is awkward, but not fatal.

The much bigger problem I have with it is that the core drama-inducing device--specifically, the letters--is internally inconsistent. The way she plays with her characters' doubts and fears drives the book, but the setup is so bizarre, from a character standpoint, that it threw me out of the narrative. I think that's about as much as I can say without spoilers, sadly. The problem is that there was clearly an idea that was dear to the author's heart, and that allowed her room to explore things within these four women that she wanted to explore, but no editor ever sat down and said, "This framing device is an interesting idea, but it is *tremendously* clumsy on the page. Fix it." I think she could've fixed it, if someone had pointed out to her that there was a problem and pushed her to correct it, but I don't think anyone did, and I think that's just bad editing. Writers get attached to clumsy plots; it happens. A good editor will help them work through it and the book will be better for it.

The biggest problem is that in *not* editing out the inconsistencies, Brashares has tremendously shortchanged one-quarter of her main cast characters, a pair of people who I think I can safely say are much-beloved and deserved better treatment. One of the women becomes Brashares's tool, rather than a person in her own right, and that diminishes both her and the book overall.

29 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Maybe my expectations were too high?, June 14, 2011

By 

NolaLady (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Sisterhood Everlasting (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants): A Novel (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) (Kindle Edition)

I was a fan of the Sisterhood books as a teenager, and was eagerly anticipating the return of Carmen, Bee, Lena, and Tibby (in that order). So, I spent my morning and early afternoon diving headfirst into this book. I was expecting a somewhat light-hearted, somewhat sentimental, somewhat touching return to the girls I fell in love with. That is not at all what I got. I don't want to spoil the plot, but I will say that the book has a melancholy tone. While the first four books certainly had moments of sadness, you were buoyed by the deep female friendships, moments of innocence, and descriptions of beautiful summer days all over the world. That lightness is entirely absent here.

While I identified with each character, to some degree, when I first read the books, I had a hard time identifying with them as adults. It's always nice to see bits and pieces of yourself in the people you are reading about, and I really had trouble doing that. I also felt that the author did not stay true to the characters and their younger selves. While we certainly change as time goes by (and this book assumes a ten-year jump), I have to think that the teenage sisters would certainly be disappointed in their adult versions. The love stories that have always been present in the books are also present here; however, they are thinly drawn, and you don't get the sense that the girls have moved beyond teenage romances.

Like the other books, this one includes quotes to open every chapter. I loved these; the author has amazing taste and pulls snippets from books, songs, and movies.

I really liked the idea of this book. However, the thing I loved best about the early Sisterhood books were the scenes of female friendship, of bonding at sleepovers and over bad and good makeovers. I think the most disappointing thing about the book was that there was very little interaction among the main characters.

If you pick up the book, will you be sorry? Maybe. Maybe not. I know I couldn't resist my curiosity, and that I was eventually going to read the book, no matter what. But it left a sour taste in my mouth. I think I will probably end up going back to the first book, which was sentimental, sweet, and perfect for a summer day--unlike this one.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed Conclusion for Our Sisterhood-Spoilers in Review, June 29, 2011

By 

D. Herring (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Sisterhood Everlasting (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants): A Novel (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) (Kindle Edition)

I have to say that I loved the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" stories and was very disappointed and let down on the conclusion of what happens to our four faithful friends when they finally grow up and move off to fulfill their dreams and fall in love.

We find Lena, Carmen, in New York with Bee in CA not in touch with another or with Tibby who is now in Australia. Its been a couple of years since the Septemberists have seen one another and Tibby gets in touch with all of the others to get together for a reunion at Lena's grandparents' home in Greece. Once in Greece tragedy occurs.

I know you can't give your characters a totally Hollywood cliche happy ever after that they did not deserve and I scoff at writers that always have some random person come along to have the hero or heroine win the day, but Ann Brashares goes totally in the opposite direction and wrote a book that had me depressed from the beginning until the end with all of the characters.

Brashares writing is still fantastic but I think that the chapters were too choppy and short so when I found myself emersed in one character's head I was then flung into another.

I still love Lena, Carmon, Bee, and Tibby and was just disheartened to see what became of four young girls who promised to always be there for one another.

Instead as countless other reviewers have said there is very little interaction between any of the main characters until the very end of the novel which was disappointing.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILER SPOILERS SPOILERSW

I don't want to get too spoilery in my review but the events that led the girls' back to Greece for a reunion and the months afterward would not have happened.

The only reason why I say this is look back at these characters through four books and think to yourself if what Ann wrote occurred could have happened with these four women.

That is what I think all of the reviewers are having a hard time with right now.

This novel would have been fine if I didn't grow up reading about these four women and know that in my heart if one was going through the troubles that we later find out about that the other three would not have been there for her or at least not told!

It was ridiculous and insulting to their friendship frankly and made me actually dislike the previous books which is a shame.

A better story would have been each character responding to the repurcussions of one of their own being ill and coming together and being there for one another.

Instead we had to deal with the reactions of the other three. All of them I think reacted like five year olds' but Bee alone made me want to shake her a lot. I was heartily sick of her at the end of this novel and wanted someone to yell at her to grow up and deal!

The end was too ridiculous for words and like I said I don't want to be too spoilery but that more than anything just had me frustrated with Brashares writing this as these characters happily ever after.

Grade:D/C