The Last Summer (of Me & You) by Ann Brashares

Goodreads Summary: Set on Long Island's Fire Island, The Last Summer (of You and Me) is an enchanting, heartrending page-turner about sisterhood, friendship, love, loss, and growing up. It is the story of a beach community friendship triangle-Riley and Alice, two sisters in their twenties, and Paul, the young man they've grown up with-and what happens one summer when budding love, sexual curiosity, a sudden serious illness, and a deep secret all collide, launching the friends into an adult world from which their summer haven can no longer protect them. 

As wise, compelling, and endearing as her Traveling Pants series, and as lyrical, thoughtful, and moving as the best literary women's fiction, this novel is sure to win an entire new generation of adult fans.

Why I Read This Book: From the Travelling Pants series, I knew I liked Brashares books, and since this was being compared to Summer Sisters by Judy Blume (one of my all time favorite books), I thought I would read this one.


Review: This was a pretty good book. I am almost always a fan of writers who transition between characters point of views. I can't say any of the events in the book were shocking, as I think they may have been intended to be, but it was still a great story of Alice's growth. I do get a little irritated by books when all the problems that arise in it could have been avoided if the characters were just honest!! But, I guess that is what real life is kind of like, so what can you do about it? Anyway, this was a good summer read, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's nice that it isn't a series, it's just a story and not it's done. I have been reading so many series books lately that it's kind of refreshing not to have the next book to think about.


Rating:

Reading and Watching Wednesday

Hello All!

Before I get to my weekly feature, I thought I would give you a little update on what's up these days. I have started some new series' which I have been wanting to get around to, namely The Infernal Devices and The Iron Fey. I'm still reading the Iron King but I'm about half done. I'm working on 4 books right now, and that has me sort of feeling overwhelmed (my own fault, I know). But the thing is, I started reading The Scarlett Letter, and I'm just not feeling the older style language right now, I'm about 30% done it, and I'm not even sure I have a clue what's going on... Probably not a good sign. I also started reading Modelland by Tyra Banks, which is so bad it's hard to not finish, but god is it ever LONG. I have the ebook so I didn't realize, but it just keeps going on and on and... well, you get the idea. I also have a paper book that I'm working through, and that's fine, I always have one on the go for when I am flying or my ereader dies, and it's The Debutante Divorcee and it's okay enough, and finally I'm reading the Iron King as I mentioned. And I'm enjoying that one, but do you ever feel guilty when you have books outstanding? I started Modelland and The Scarlett Letter before I started Clockwork Angel, now I have that finished and posted about, and now I'm half done The Iron King and I still haven't finished those 2! I want to just keep reading The Iron King, but I feel bad for the other 2! Does this ever happen to anyone else?! Maybe I'm crazy, haha. Anyway, I'm going on vacation on Friday (a big road trip) so hopefully I'll knock out both Modelland and The Scarlett Letter then, and be able to read only awesome stuff for a little while.

And, now on to the book vs. movie!
This week we're going to take a look at:

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants is one of my favorite book series' and I had high hopes for the movie when it first came out (some time in 2005). I went to see it in theaters, and I Was really disappointed... at first. They changed so many things in this book. Some things that I can remember that really stood out as different are the fact that Perry (Bridget's twin brother) was missing, Tibby and Bailey meet differently, Kostos and Lena's relationship with each other and their families is different, Eric is Mexican in the book (not a boy-next door American), and Brian was not Asian in the book. I never understand why they have to change such simple details like these. Why can't you cast people that are some what similar to how they are described in the book? And why make it an apple when it's supposed to be an orange, know what I mean?

Other difference that I can actually understand why they were different (too complex, time issues, etc.) are things like Lena going to visit Bridget in Baja, Tibby's depression over Bailey, how the pants were actually found, how Carmen's father's wedding played out, etc. These changes I noticed, but didn't really bother me.

As for the 4 main girls, I thought the casting was great. At first I wasn't thrilled with Carmen and Lena's actresses, by in the movie they were perfect. They had such chemistry as friends, and after awhile I grew to love the movie for different reasons than I love the book.

Verdict: Book is better, but movie is great too :) However, don't ever let me start talking about the 2nd movie, because THAT was a piece of trash.

Anyway, I am hoping to get one of these scheduled to come out next Wednesday while I'm away, but time is short, so we'll see!

Happy Reading :)

Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares

So, getting back to my roots of doing a book review I thought I would choose Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares because it accomplishes two things for me. I have recently finished this book, so it gets that off my to do list, but also I can't write about Sisterhood Everlasting without mentioning the first four, and I like to at least touch on some books i have read in the past (just so you learn a little bit about my reading history).


One of my first blog posts mentioned Sisterhood Everlasting while I was reviewing Sweet Valley Confidential (didn't see that one - find it here... done reading? Okay). As I mentioned in that post I have a love hate relationship with these types of books. I really enjoyed the Travelling Pants series, so when I saw Sisterhood Everlasting, I had to read it.

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.

Why I Read This Book: I suppose it would be more fitting to describe why I read the first Sisterhood book then to say why I read this one. I remember sometime in high school going to a movie with a friend and being too early so we went into the bookstore. Back then I could not go into a book store and not buy a book (I have a little more restraint now). So, not having too much time, I grabbed this one because the cover looked interesting. As for the rest of the series, I acquired as birthday or Christmas gifts when they came out. This last one however, I bought as an e-book and I may have to go get the hardcover, as looking at my bookshelf it bothers me that I have 4, but know there is 5.

Review: This is a difficult book to review as its hard to speak about it without giving anything away (which I try really hard not to do). First of all I think Brashares did a pretty good job of writing this book, especially in the areas where I found the recently reviewed Sweet Valley Confidential lacked. The story had continuity, and it didn't contradict itself. This could be because 10 years haven't actually passed since the fourth novel came out. The book did a really good job at describing the characters and their personal development stories. In Brashares style, she was able to incorporate each girls story told in the first person without having it get confusing. There are definitely things that she did with the girls lives and personalities that I didn't love, but that isn't really the point, she was still able to write it believably. I could picture how each girl got to where they were, and although infuriating at times, it was again, believable. When doing a "10 years later" type of story I think it is more important to take the reader down that path of how the character got to that place than making readers 'like' the characters. Obviously there had to be some sort of 'shock factor' in the book to give it a purpose and I think it was good. I read the book in about 3 days, which is pretty fast since I normally only have about an hour a day to read.

I liked it, and I think it was a good book. I also hated it because I don't like what happened!! But, if you are a fan of the series, read it. I shouldn't think you will be disappointed.

Rating:

Tribute to a Childhood favorite

So, as I begin my foray into the adventure of writing about the books I am reading, it seems wrong not to mention the books that turned me into the book-a-holic I am now.

The first chapter-ed novel I ever read was Goblins in the Castle by Bruce Coville.

Just exploring the dark, scary dungeon
 of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, NBD

I read it 2 pages at a time to my dad before bed when I was about 4-5 years old. After this I was given a Sweet Valley Kids series book in my Easter basket, and it pretty much changed my life! The "Easter Bunny" brought it for me because one of the main characters was named Jessica (which if you couldn't have guessed, is my name). From there I spent YEARS reading all the Sweet Valley books I could get my hands on. There was a used book store around the corner from our house that if you brought in used books, they would allow you to trade for 75% of what they believed the value of the book you were bringing to be. So, I packed up all my Bernstein Bears, and Little Golden Books into boxes and traded them in. I can't even estimate just how many of them I read. The library in Dartmouth used to allow you to take out 30 books and keep them for 3 weeks. In the summer, I would take out and read 30 SV books every 3 weeks. We used to build forts in the woods behind out house and just read there all day.

Sorry Nancy, you won't have
help from this Girl!

I wasn't a Nancy Drew girl, or a Babysitters Club girl (although I have read many of both), I was a Sweet Valley Girl, and I wanted nothing more than to visit the split level ranch occupied by Ned, Alice, Steven, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. It actually left me with life long twin envy.

Where is my identical Best Friend??

Which leads me nicely into the fact that recently I read Francine Pascal's newest edition to the Sweet Valley collection, being 'Sweet Valley Confidential - Ten Years Later'.

You can just tell from the cover
something isn't going well in SV land!!

I really have a love hate relationship with these types of books being written (I'm currently reading Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares, the 5th book of the Travelling Pants series, which also fits into this category). These books are addictive, you have to read them if you read the others, you can't just ignore that it was written, but you're never going to like what the author ended up doing with their characters. It's either not going to be the way you pictures it (if you did at all) or they do something that just doesn't seem likely to you. That was my problem with Sweet Valley Confidential, it just didn't seem believable. I won't get into plot summaries here, but if you read it I'm almost sure you will agree. In addition to that, Francine Pascal must have felt like she needed a paycheck and FAST, as the book was very poorly written. The language used was bad, the words 'like' and 'so' were inserted so unnaturally into the text that sometimes it was confusing to understand what the point of the sentence was. There were also glaring errors throughout the book. Maybe only die hard fans like myself were able to remember the details of books from the 80's and 90's but I don't think George Fowler is going to be very happy Francine though his name was Richard (Lila's father). Overall, I'm not sure what part of me needed to read this, but as soon as I heard it was published, I read it immediately. It was a bad book. But for me it was like having a cup of coffee with an old friend. Someone who if you met today, you probably wouldn't like them at all, but since you have so much history, you make it work. I made this book work for me, and even though I think the plot is out to lunch, it was nice to take a visit back to see my old friends in Sweet Valley, California.