Sisterhood Everlasting

Was glad to continue following the sisters through their lives. Many times you wonder how young people have grown up and turned out in life. Great series for girls of the same age. The movies combined several of these books together. It is always hard to decide: Read the book first or see the movie first????

So if you are considering this book, you probably have read all the "Pants Books", seen the movie, and are of an age that you almost feel like you grew up with our 4 beloved friends in this series. This is basically a fast forward to where the characters would be now. It is a very realistic depiction, and not all happy and flowery as sometimes the pants books were. You will cry reading this book. But what I love about it is the fact the author too has matured and didn't make it so everyone is happily ever after. It is real, raw, and once you finish reading you will appreciate that the author took the chance to write it in this fashion.

It is great seeing the return of the Septembers in this novel. The book is filled with twists, heartbreak and sentimentally. I must say it is a definite page turner as you become more involved with the more mature characters. What I like about this book though is that although the characters have all grown up, they are still themselves without a doubt and you still feel the magic that the original book offered. What I was slightly upset about was the lack of interaction between the girls in the novel. In the previous novels when they were apart, I felt like they made more of an attempt to communicate but here i feel their communication is almost severed except for brief sections within the novel. Overall it is a good read. I believe that most fans of the Sisterhood series will enjoy reading it.

Another well written book by Ann Brashares. I was sucked in immediately. It had been quite some time since I read the first four books of the series, but she was great about reminding us about what had happened with each character in the past. I really enjoyed this book, even though I found myself crying through much of it. Worth the read.

If you've read Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and enjoyed them then this is the MUST read conclusion to it all! Grab a box of tissues, a quiet corner and just read until your heart is content! Fabulous read and great, unexpected conclusion to a wonderful series!!

I was excited to hear that there had been another book with the original Sisterhood (sorry, but I just don't count "Three Willows" - that's just me) and was eager to read what happened to the girls since the last book.

Without giving anything away, I can honestly say I enjoyed the book. Many have complained that the girls aren't the same ones we fell in love with in the first four books- and of course they aren't! The girls aren't nineteen now, they are practically thirty and so much has changed for them. They've grown up, life has happened, that's going to change you. I think Ms. Brashares did an excellent job with the book. She wrote the characters in a way that I thought was fitting. Granted, I wish some things would have been written differently, but I think it's a very well done ending to the series. I will continue to read the entire series again and again.

After reading the other in the series and getting to 'know' the characters, this was an amazing ending. Couldn't quit crying! Thought about the books and my wonderful relationships with high school girlfriends after 45 years and felt very blessed to have them.

Although I didn't read every book in this series, I was drawn to it. As I started to read, instantly I was captivated. I COULDN'T put it down nor did I want to. This story was well written and beautiful.. I highly suggest that you buy it and read it.

Not necessarily a literary masterpiece and definitely liberal with the dues ex machina, but I forgot how much I missed Ann Brashares' thoughtful writing and these real, flawed characters. I felt fulfilled and hopeful when I was finished.

This book made me terribly sad yet unbelievably happy at the ending! I could feel what the characters were feeling. I was so happy to hear about this book because I grew up reading the Sisterhood books.

This was a good read to complete the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants novels. There was a twist to ensure the books didn't wrap everything into a neat package. Definitely going to move you to tears in some spots. Liked it.

I have read all of The Traveling Pants books. This book was great because it closed an amazing series of books in such an amazing way. It also had many twists and surprises it keeps the reader engaged until the very end.

This novel is the heartwrenching final chapter characteristic of Brashares. Truly tragic, it led me crying through about 300 of the 350 pages. As beautiful a story as it is, I found several chapters unbearably difficult to read. A devoted traveling pants fan, I was broken up by the fate of the gang ten years in the future. After likely questioning Brashares' plot choices, the conclusion will leave you with the warm fuzzy feeling you were originally anticipating. This series is a true trailblazer, never will another "chick-lit" collection compare.

Ten years and many trials and tribulations later, we find Lena, Bridget, and Carmen in the year before their 30th birthday. Carmen is with a man who seems as boring as staring at a white wall; Lena spends most of her time alone in her drab apartment, painting; and Bridget likes to spend her free time scouting out her own possessions to sell to places like Goodwill. All of a sudden, however, each is given a letter from Tibby, enclosed with plane tickets to Santorini, Greece, the place where they lost the Traveling Pants all those years ago. However, things quickly go awry on this trip, and soon the Sisters are given the task of something they'd never thought they'd do.

For some reason, I never thought that the Sisters would end up where they did. Lena, who was my favorite character in the first four books, appeared as if her characterization had been stretched and skewed and bent out of shape. Carmen was the same as well. Bridget was the one who seemed most closely written to her characterization in the first few books. For the first few chapters, it was all I could do not to skip pages, because it was boring reading about these lives that I felt had nothing to do with the characters I had grown up with.

However, the story didn't really improve. Lena and Kostos's story was much the same as it had been in the previous books. Amost no deviation for the most part, and I wanted something new. By the middle of the book, the Lena/Kostos saga was by far the most interesting thing in it, but it felt trite after having read the same storyline in the previous books.

For Carmen, her development is not much better. There is really weird scene out of left field where she meets a Chilean man with kids on a train, and she falls in love with them. They're complete strangers, and it's just... odd.

There were some good parts to this book, but on the whole, I thought it was really one of the least possible avenues the Sisters could have ended up in 10 years. This book was supposed to make me laugh and cry, I think, and admire life's twisting turns, but instead, I closed it feeling confused. There are some important parts of the plot that just don't make sense. Here's hoping that anyone who reads this book will get more out of it than I did.

I grew up reading the Sisterhood series, so I feel somewhat attached to these characters. I was so elated when I heard there would be another book. This book was such a beautiful story to add to the series. Beware, the story will break your heart. You will cry, with sadness and happiness. I couldn't be more satisfied with this installment of the Sisterhood. My hopes are up that maybe we'll get another, maybe.

--SPOILERS--

I discovered the sisterhood when I was 15 and a freshman in high school. Four years later I'm 19 and in college, the approximate age of the girls the last time we saw them years ago. Most fans, including myself, were under the impression that the fourth book would be the last time we visited the lives of Tibby, Lena, Bridget, and Carmen, but Ann Brashares decided to go back to these characters and investigate what they would be like as full grown adults. I was super excited- what a genius idea! I couldn't wait to see what had become of characters that felt like my friends. The reunion, however, wound up being a little too bittersweet for my personal taste.

The plot surrounds the girls, `who are approaching 30, adult lives- Lena is a teacher at her former school, RISD (one issue I had with her plot was that she seemed to be able to take quite a bit of time off during the school year without so much as blinking, despite not having a lot of money), she is kind of, sort of, dating a fellow shut-in but still harbors feelings for her long-gone ex-boyfriend, Kostos, who is now a successful and famous businessman.

Carmen is a semi-famous actress with a regular gig on a television show and is engaged to a rich and powerful network head named Jones. The problem? Her friends don't like him very much, and for most of the novel I didn't feel like Carmen particularly liked him either. She never thought of him warmly, and it made me (and eventually her) wonder why she had accepted his proposal in the first place.

Bridget lives with her boyfriend Eric in California and her somewhat bipolar personality has apparently kicked into overdrive as she has aged. Bee can't seem to hold onto a job, an apartment, or even household objects. The idea that she could keep a boyfriend for eleven years seems kind of farfetched!

Tibby lives in Australia with Brian and has become increasingly distant over the last two year. So when she sends the girls plane tickets, to Lena's deceased grandparents' hometown in Greece, the other girls jump at the chance. But tragedy strikes before they ever get to see her.

What Worked:
Ann's writing is really good and flows well so you don't get bored.

We got updates on most of the minor characters! I was worried that a lot of them would be left out due to time and content, but almost everyone was mentioned. I was really happy with the changes in Bridget's former shut-in, sad story brother Perry, who I always had a soft spot for. At least somebody got a happy ending as of the beginning of the book!

The quotes in between the chapters are the perfect combination of poetic legends and pop-culture references.

What Didn't Work:
The biggest thing for me was that I didn't feel like the girls had voices that aged ten years. They didn't feel or sound 29 or 30, they sounded much more like 20. I found it kind of unrealistic that three out of four of them were still with high school boyfriends or caught up on high school crushes (especially, as I said, the ever-changing Bridget). I mean, I know some high school relationships turn into real, adult relationships and even marriages but I'm only two years out of high school and although my high school relationship was important to me and felt like it was never-ending, I grew out of it. The same thing happened to all of my friends. I feel like a realistic portrayal of growing up should have demonstrated this. I know we all love the male leads and so I'll probably get angry readers on that point, but I think it's true.

The other thing was the author nailing it into our heads that motherhood is important. Motherhood changes your life. Okay, okay, we get it. Its okay to want other things or a alternative lifestyle too, not every woman has to be a mother.

And lastly, after the big twist at the beginning I felt like the book became a teensy bit predictable. Of course Kostos has a horrible, evil, girlfriend who Lena is better than in every way. Of course Tibby could plot Bridget, and everyone else's plan of action. Of course Carmen finds herself just when she's becoming an untouchable.

Overall it was well written, but I didn't love it.

Very fitting end of the series. Something happens early on that made me not want to read on but for the hope it would get better, I could barely put it down. If you haven't read the first four, read them first.

Ann Brashares must have been suicidal when she wrote this book because I've never read anything so depressing. Who wants to read a book that never gives you a moment of catharsis or brings you back to those characters we once shared, yes tears and moments of sorrow, but also laughter and happiness. Don't read unless you want to be somber all day long

Sisterhood Everlasting is the fifth follow-up in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series set ten years in the future from the last book, Forever in Blue. Time and distance has not been kind to the Sisterhood and they are now spread across the country: Tibby is in Australia, Lena is in Rhode Island, Carmen is in New York and Bridget is in San Francisco. In so many ways, there are still the [little] girls that we knew though they are now 29 going on 30 and some have grown-up jobs and grown-up relationships (or the same serious relationships they nurtured as teens).

The premise of this book is that the girls will go back to Greece, minus the infamous pants that were once lost there by Lena's sister Effie last time, for a trip they hope will make all the time and distance fall away. But when the girls arrive in Greece, the world of the Sisterhood turns upside down forever in a shocking and unexpected twist built up slowly and painfully throughout the rest of the novel. The book focuses primarily on how each girl/woman deals with this new trial and how it affects the now tenuous ties between them.
In the end, we see the worst and the best of our favorite characters. We see them grow up once and for all, not because of the ten years past but because of how they cope with the shocking thing that threatens to eviscerate them and their lifelong friendships.

This is not a lighthearted book though it is a beautiful one. It is a book about grief and being thrown into adulthood jarringly. The book is painful and it should come with tissues but as you read, you realize how much you've missed these characters, too, and how happy you are to see where they have ended up and how this new unbearable challenge course-corrects their once innocent lives by giving them meaning they didn't, couldn't, have had before.

It is the perfect ending.
We learn what happened with the 4 friends in the last 10 years and we meet new people.
It shows that real friends are always there when you need them.
Be prepare to cry!