SPOILER ALERT: Do not read unless you don't plan on reading the book or, if you do, until after you have read it. This blog is not a review, but my reaction to the book.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares has always held a special place in both my book shelf and my heart. One could guess based on this fact how excited I was when I learned a week ago that Brashares had written a fifth book, an adult novel, as a companion to her Young Adult series. After reading some reviews on the book in both blogs and newspaper articles, my excitement grew, but I also grew weary. One summary published by Publisher's Weekly broke my heart, causing me to burst into near hysteria at work (how embarrassing!). How could a book review bring such a surge of emotion? Well learning that one of the beloved main characters of the series died under mysterious circumstances, her friends suspecting suicide might do the trick. While most people wouldn't have the same reaction I had to this news, I don't think most people become as infatuated and involved with the characters of books as I do. Having been a teenage girl myself when I first read the books (...technically I'm still a teenager, but I feel more like an adult these days), I fell in love with a quartet of girls so similar and yet so different from myself. I felt like I was reading about myself in those books, or at least the Megan I wanted to be or hoped I was. I idolized Carmen, Bee, Lena, and Tibby, wanting nothing more to have an inseparable group of friends who were gorgeous and brave and wise, though human too, for they made so many mistakes just like the rest of us. See? The way I'm writing about them now makes it sounds as if they are real and my friends, not four fictional girls. That's the beauty of Brashares's writing; her characters are so realistic and relate-able that it's hard to believe that they aren't real.
I believe that's one of the things that drew me to the series. I remember always being on the lookout for the next book to arrive so I could curl up on the couch for a few hours and walk in the shoes of Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bee. I remember being so disappointed when Brashares announced that Forever in Blue would be the last book she'd write for the series. I made sure to mark the exact date of the book's release on my calendar and somehow convince my parents to take me to the mall thirty minutes away in order to get the book in my hands the day it came out. Having been 15 at the time, I remember being disappointed in the ending of the series. Having only experienced one year of high school, I found it hard to connect with the four girls, now in college, and found myself angry, not sad or happy as I expected at the end. That's it?! I remember thinking. I was so frustrated that I put the books on my shelf and didn't touch them again until Last Wednesday when I read online that Brashares's had written a fifth book, an adult novel, to accompany the series. Without a second thought, I immediately picked up my battered copy of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and began reading (I'm on of those people who always has to re-read all the books in the series when a new book comes out. I do it to both refresh my memory of what has happened in previous books and to get myself siked up about the new book). Maybe because I had now graduated from high school and had experience a year at college myself, I was able to finely understand and appreciate all the things that I had found so frustrating in the fourth book when I read it four years ago. Somehow, too, the girls who had seemed so much older than me while first reading the series, now seemed so unbelievably young and naive. While for some people this might have lessened their affection for the series, mine grew. I, too, had been young and naive at 15, 16, 17, 18 (and still am today at 19) and while not having exactly the same experiences, I did remember how it felt to be at that same age and act out based on all my confusing thoughts and, now looking back, rash and crazy decisions. When Tibby was talking in Girls in Pants about how she was afraid of losing the intimate relationship she had with her best friends when they all went off to separate colleges, for I, too, had those same thoughts and worries.
In the end, having read the series through for a second time, I was utterly scared to pick up Sisterhood Everlasting, knowing that Tibby would die in the first hundred pages. I put off reading the book. Well in truth, I got really busy Monday and Tuesday and then started and finished another book Wednesday, but I honestly could have picked the book up and started to read it before I went to bed or after I finished reading the other book yesterday, but I somehow knew that this was a book I couldn't read in parts. I had to find a time that would be largely uninterrupted so that I could fully experience all the emotions that I knew from just reading a summary online that the book would arouse in me.
And I wasn't disappointed. Much.
Due to the weather, I only worked for two hours this morning before my boss sent me and my fellow workers home (it pays to have an outdoors job sometimes). I came home and ran on the treadmill, had lunch, took a shower, and then finally, reluctantly even, settled down to read. I read straight through the afternoon and night, stopping only to go grocery shopping with my mom and eat dinner. Having just finished the book some 40 minutes ago, I can't quite yet put to words how I feel. I feel happy because though Tibby died, she took care of her friends. The book ended on a joyful note, all of the girls living together on a farm that Tibby had bought and all of their relationships (Bee and Eric, Lena and Kostos - FINALLY) finally working out after five books (Everyone except Carmen ended up with someone in the end which is quite sad because in only one of the books did Carmen have a relationship that ended in her favor). Basically all the loose ends from the four previous books were tied up and everyone lived happily ever after except Brian, though he did have Bailey, his and Tibby's daughter, and Carmen's dad. I know after five books and finally an end I could be happy with, I should feel content.
But I don't.
Maybe it's because the girls are no longer girls, but adult women turning 30 (a milestone I'm still 11 years away from) that was hard for me. I've never been good with change, especially drastic changes. Ever since the year I was to turn 16, I've had some serious struggles with leaving childhood. I'm not quite sure why yet as I'm still trying to figure myself out. Maybe it's the responsibilities that come with being an adult or the lose of innocence. Like I said, I'm not sure, and I might never know, why I'm struggling so hard against adulthood.
Maybe it's because Carmen had a weak story line and Tibby had none at all (for obvious reasons, Megan, she was DEAD the entire book...). Maybe it's because all the storylines, except for the plot twists involving Tibby's death, seemed utterly predictable to me after reading the four previous novels where the girls seem to get into the same sort of trouble each book and miraculously see the light at the end of the tunnel, enabling them to correct their mistakes and, in the case of Carmen, Tibby, and Lena, be forgiven by those they've hurt.
Maybe it's because the book ended almost too perfectly. A very bizarre admittance from a girl who doesn't like to watch movies or read books that don't have the ending I think they should. I don't want a realistic ending for my characters; I want a perfect ending where everyone gets what they want. In this case, almost everything did end perfectly for them so why am I upset? Could it be that the girls had become so life-like and real to me that I expected the ending to be happy, but not quite perfect just like real life?
...maybe it's because now that all the loose ends have been tied up, the series really is over.
How sad.
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