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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A New Sisterhood, December 30, 2008
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As her subtitle implies, 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows is intended to build on the success of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, and in fact, Brashares's new characters speak reverentially of the sisterhood (apparently word has spread). However, Brashares also pokes fun at her own cross-reference. As one character puts it, "A lot of girls in our school tried to follow in [the sisterhood's] footsteps. It's the best reason I can give for a lot of terrible-fitting jeans in our middle school." Brashares isn't necessarily cashing in on her first series; perhaps instead of saying that she is building on the success of the Pants books, I should say that she is building on the kind of emotional and social success that a group of close friends can provide for each other. Brashares is very taken with the idea that good friends can help you through hard times. Still, her characters are far from being joined at the hip. They are independent and unique, only circling back to their friends at key moments. The three girls in this new book--Polly, Jo, and Ama--have just finished middle school and are looking forward to high school with varying degrees of dread and anticipation. One of the dominant questions of the book is, Will old friendships survive a new era of life? As Polly, Jo, and Ama go their separate ways for summer vacation, that question hovers over them, with its deeper resonances of How am I changing? Who am I really, and who will I become? Each girl faces her own set of challenges. For Polly, it's about self-definition. The path she chooses is utterly ill-suited to her--but Brasheres does interesting things with that. Polly must also face up to the fact that her mother is not okay, and why. Jo is pulling away from the old group, trying to get in with a new crowd at the restaurant where she works for the summer near her family's beach house. She meets a too-charming guy and has to decide what to do about him. In addition, her parents' problems force Jo to reconsider what she wants out of life. Ama, a classic perfectionist, is sent to a summer enrichment program where, for the first time in her life, she feels incapable of shining. How she learns to deal with failure is the theme of her summer. There's a little romance in her subplot, too. I was pleased to see that Ama is African American, by the way (literally: she was born in Ghana). The author's framing device is three willow trees that the girls planted together when they were much younger. It's nice, though perhaps a tad expendable. However, I enjoyed the notes about willow trees that began each section of the book. The most important thing you should know about 3 Willows is that Brashares writes very movingly about these girls. By the end of the book, I cared very much about what happened to Jo and Polly and Ama. That's the author's true gift to her readers.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, not classic, February 1, 2009
I loved the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series and was sad to see it end so I was thrilled when it was announced Ann Brashares would be writing a new series with a whole new set of characters and a new plot. I wasn't disappointed, but I did have some qualms with the book. 3 Willows is about three girls whose friendship is on the rocks. Already it's different from Brashares's other novel in the fact that the girls are no longer close. Jo, Ama, and Polly are considerably younger than the former sisterhood as they are only preparing to enter their freshman year in high school. What Worked: As usual with Ann Brashares, the characters are likeable and relatable. The plot lines are fairly interesting. Her ideas were unique. While there was some of the original sisterhood in the girls they were all their own people and nothing felt like déjà vu. What Didn't: Bringing up characters from the other books. Although they were from the same area as the original foursome I didn't like the overlapping. The sisterhood is portrayed as some mythical fantasy in this novel. Polly, who baby-sits for both Tibby's family and (as it's insinuated) Carmen's little brother, meets Brian briefly. She sees him sadly sitting in Tibby's room and thinks that he must miss her and that their relationship is complicated. I felt like this opened up a new storyline for the original four and took the focus off the new girls. Effie, Lena's sister, plays a big part in the novel but whereas before she seemed like comical relief and was a sympathetic character she is now portrayed as a horrible witch. Lena herself makes an appearance but really adds nothing to the storyline, Jo just raves about how pretty she is. Bridget is mentioned as Jo's former soccer coach but the way Jo describes her makes her look like an ice queen. Carmen's own name is never mentioned, only her younger brother's. Polly's story was unbelievably depressing. You felt like nothing good was ever going to happened to her and I felt like her physical appearance was unnecessarily ripped on. All in all the book was entertaining, but the charm of the original sisterhood is missing.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
somewhat formulaic tale on friendships, January 5, 2009
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Ann Brashares, author of the bestselling "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series, has come out with a new book about a new sisterhood. The girls of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants have grown up and gone off to college. But to fourteen-year-olds Polly, Jo, and Ama, they are a legend and inspiration. Unfortunately for the threesome, they are nothing like the original Sisterhood: they used to be close, but when they hit junior high, their friendship fell apart. Now in the summer before they begin high school, they split up across the country for separate adventures. Jo heads to the beach for a new job that will bring her into contact with cool older students; Polly becomes obsessed with modeling and goes to modeling camp; and Ama spends her summer in Wyoming on a hiking adventure. Though miles - and lives - apart, the girls realize that their friendship, like the willow trees they planted as children together, is still strong and eternal. I never read the original Sisterhood series, although I did see the first movie. It didn't stay with me, but the concept was cute: a group of friends who are connected in their summer apart by "magical pants." "3 Willows" takes that concept backward - Polly, Jo, and Ama are apart but their absence from each other brings them back together. And that's where I thought the book was weakest. Each of the girls' stories are compelling and interesting; there's a lot of hard situations that each of them have to face. But I found it hard to believe that by being apart they would want to rely on each other, when they hadn't talked in awhile. I think the book would have been more believable had they spent their summer together instead, so when the final crisis comes it makes sense that they show solidarity. They also never have a trio heart-to-heart, so when they renew their friendship I didn't quite believe it. Plus, since Brashares has already used the "summer apart" concept, the book felt rather unoriginal to me. I also felt that some of the situations were a little too intense for the age group. There's a scene where Jo talks about having a "kissing hangover" - kind of a fun way to describe that heady, brain-scrambled feeling. The author goes on to say that Jo's first kiss was like drinking one beer, whereas the kiss with the summer guy was bigger than that. I know that underage drinking happens, and kids party, but I didn't necessarily like the implication that a 14-year-old already knew what a buzz (or worse) felt like. The target reading group I'm sure will know what a hangover is, but they don't need the inference that underage drinking is okay. As a new reader to Ann Brashares, I wasn't impressed. "3 Willows" will probably appeal more to the target age group (preteen to high school) or to fans of the original, and I'm guessing superior, "Sisterhood" series.
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