Review: Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

Title: Sisterhood Everlasting
Author: Ann Brashares
Publisher: Random House
Publishing Date: June 14th 2011
Pages: 349
Genre: Chic Lit
Series: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants #5
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Goodreads Summary:
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.

Review:
Wow what a breathtaking, tear jerking, heart-warming end to an awesome series. A bittersweet end to one of my favorite series, it was welcomed but the series will be missed.

The story continues 10 years down the line. The 4 friends have slowly lost touch especially with Tibby. The emails, the letters, the phone calls, they call started to dissipate until there were none, until the day they all receive a package from Tibby with plane tickets to Greece where they will all meet again for a short vacation. When the friends arrive at Greece, tragedy strikes and their lives will never be the same. Each friend attempts to find a way to put the broken pieces of their lives back together to find that the only way they can fully heal is with each other.

The girls have changed so much, each with their own set of issues, their own hang-ups, and their own dreams. They each hold on to a part of the past where they were all close and each miss the time terribly, trying to get through life without the closeness of their lifelong friends.

The writing is of course beautiful in this story, just like the other; except for now the issues are more mature, more real. A book I definitely did not want to put down and couldn’t catch my breath when the last page was turned. I wanted to remain in that last moment for as long as could, to take it all in, then slowly come back to reality closing the book and the ending my time with the sisterhood.

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