Sisterhood Everlasting

**Book 1 * Book 2 * Book 3 * Book 4**

Of all the books in this series, this book, the final book, was the one that I desperately needed tissues for.

This takes place ten years after the conclusion of Forever in Blue. The Septembers have all gone their separate ways, and, try as they might, they have drifted apart. Then, suddenly Lena, Bridget, and Carmen get a letter from Tibby inviting them to Greece for a reunion.

Lena is teaching art and still wondering about the possibility of Kostos. She barely talks to anyone, but she has started learning Greek.

Carmen is an actress. She's engaged to a man who treats her like she's stupid. And she is so focused on her career and upcoming wedding that she can't make time to get in touch with her friends.

Bridget is in San Francisco with Eric, who became a lawyer. She constantly moves them from apartment to apartment, never able to stay in one place. She also constantly loses her phone or doesn't pay the bill, so it is harder for her friends to get in touch with her.

Tibby moved with Brian to Australia. But as time goes by, she stops contacting her friends. They get concerned about her, but then excuse her by saying that she's just busy.

So, with the tickets and invitations to Greece, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget are excited to actually be together again.

Then, the three States girls arrive to no Tibby. The news gets worse when they learn that Tibby died by drowning and that she had written letters to each other them that essentially says goodbye.

The mystery of the why of Tibby's death as well as the series of letters she had for each of her friends with specific dates on when to open them help to process the grief.

The book is sort of sad. It has some happy, humorous moments (gotta have that comic relief), but it's mostly a sad, gripping book.

Forever in Blue

**Book 1 * Book 2 * Book 3**

This book had a tinge of the bittersweet to it. Obviously the four girls have grown up. They're in college, but they have not spent time as a foursome since the end of the last summer. Mostly because of Carmen.

Carmen goes to school and withdraws. She becomes a quiet, shy, self-conscious girl. She makes one friend at school, Julia, but otherwise she remains invisible. Julia is an aspiring actress, so she convinces Carmen to help build sets for the theater department. She then gets her to go to a theater camp in Vermont. But what happens there is not what she expects, and she finds herself both coming out of her shell and learning what friendship really is.

Bridget takes an archaeology trip to Turkey for the summer as a retaliation to her boyfriend Eric going to Mexico to be an assistant director of the soccer camp where they originally met. She enjoys the work unearthing bodies and a house. But she becomes close to Peter, a married man who is one of the directors of the dig. In the end, she learns about herself and what she needs in her life.

Tibby is in New York taking a summer screenwriting class. She has been dating Brian since the last summer. One night they get drunk and have sex, which leads to scary consequences. Tibby breaks up with Brian, mostly out of fear. She almost immediately regrets it, especially after Lena's younger sister Effie asks her permission to date Brian. She really learns what love is over the course of this book.

Lena is at art school, trying to forget about Kostos, but at the same time, not wanting to forget about him. Carmen tells her that the moment that she forgets him will probably be the time that she sees him again. But she finds that she has a growing attraction to Leo, who is in her figure class. They both want more time with the model, but due to circumstances (not being able to afford her and not being able to work with her off the books) they decide to model for each other. This creates some slight confusion for Lena, but she does forget about Kostos...just to have him appear at her door. Lena is left confused for most of this book where the other girls are learning important lessons about themselves.

I think the big thing about this book is that the girls have to figure out how to maintain their friendship. They don't get together when they should and if something happens, at least one girl shuts everyone out for a while. It's sad and they have to figure it all out.

Girls in Pants

**Book 1 * Book 2**

Something about this series is addicting to me. I find myself being sucked in each time I read it, and it seems to just speed by. But that's how I feel about books when I really like them: they just go too fast.

This is the summer before the girls go off for their freshman years in college. They're splitting up, not just for the summer, but for the year. It's going to be strange for them and they are all confused about how their friendship will endure that.

Lena is struggling with her family. She plans to go to art school, but her father suddenly tells her she can't after he discovers her taking a class that includes a nude model. He refuses to pay and if he won't pay, she won't go. But her art teacher talks her into creating a portfolio to apply for a scholarship to the school. She gets the scholarship and it won't matter if her father wants her to go or not. But their family is already dealing with some difficulties since Valia, Lena's grandmother moved into their house from Greece.

Carmen is planning to go to the same college her father went to, and her grades are so good that she's accepted to this small college. But she learns that her mother and her new stepfather are expecting a baby around the time that she's supposed to leave and it's like Carmen's world turns upside down. Carmen, the nearly 18 year old, is afraid that this new baby will replace her when she goes away to college and that her mother will forget about her, so she makes plans to not go away to college and instead go to one locally and stay in the apartment with her mother, stepfather, and the new baby. But Carmen also meets a new boy while she's caring for Lena's grandmother Valia for the summer.

Tibby is headed to NYU to work on a degree in film. But her summer becomes a wreck when she starts ignoring Brian, the boy she's close friends with, and her three year old sister falls out of Tibby's window trying to reach the apple tree in the backyard. Tibby is wracked with guilt that her sister's fall is her fault since she never opens that window and the one time she does, the three year old falls out.With her sister's accident, Tibby starts questioning everything she thought she knew.

Bridget has a bigger struggle. She spends the summer coaching soccer at a soccer camp. But one of the other coaches is none other than Eric who she had a fling with in the first book. She imagines that the whole summer will be confusing and disastrous because of what happened the end of their first summer together. But Eric has a girlfriend, so Bridget decides that they'll just be friends, and over the course of the summer they become friends.

The girls grow together and they grow in their own ways. But, as usual, they grow.

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

**Book 1**

I'm going to go ahead and say it. I love this series. There. It's out. I love this young adult chick-lit series.

The second book could arguably be better than the first. But the changes in the girls this time around are even more about love.

Carmen's mom falls in love. But Carmen is jealous and ruins it. Throughout this book she learns about love, that even though her mom has this man in her life, she still loves her daughter.

Bridget goes to Alabama to see her grandmother and learn more about her mother. In the process she learns more about herself. She finally gets out of the funk that she fell into at the end of the first book.

Tibby struggles with the fact that she's going to "college" for a film-making summer course. She makes friends with the wrong people, makes a movie that was cruel, but eventually realizes that she has to be who she is and do the movie that she was meant to make.

As for Lena, she learns a lot about love and heartbreak. Kostos comes to town and Lena's life ends up in a whirlwind. But things take a dramatic turn when he suddenly has to return to Greece.

The girls have to grow up and learn a lot of lessons about life and, for the most part, love.

Next book is before they go to college, and I'm excited to read about that.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Ok. I'm a bit of a sucker for girl coming of age books. I can't explain why, I just have always loved them.

This book is four coming of age stories wrapped in a story of friendship.

Bridget, Lena, Carmen, and Tibby are best friends. They have been best friends since they were born. They normally spend every summer together, but this year, their fifteenth year, they are all going their separate ways for a couple of months. They stay connected by a magical pair of jeans that somehow fit all four of them, even though they are built very differently.

Carmen goes to visit her father. She assumes that it will be the two of them having fun and connecting. But she is surprised when she arrives and discovers that not only will it not be the two of them, but that her father is getting married and now has two stepchildren. She hates the new family, but she is mostly mad and disappointed that her father didn't warn her.

Bridget is in Baja California for soccer camp. She is the headstrong one of the group. She is the girl who gets a goal and doesn't stop until she reaches it. Her goal for this camp is to seduce the 19 year old male coach of another team. She is brazen and reckless.

Lena heads to Greece with her younger sister to visit their grandparents. While there, Lena's grandmother tries to set her up with the grandson of her friends and neighbors. Lena tries to find a way to turn away Kostos, and then an unfortunate incident happens, creating a rift between the two grandfathers who have been friends for decades.

Poor Tibby is left alone. She doesn't go anywhere and gets a job at the local pharmacy, Wallman's. She meets Bailey, who, while three years younger, will turn Tibby's world upside down. Bailey has leukemia and she manages to show Tibby that her life isn't as bad as she had previously thought it was and opens her eyes to the world outside her "miserable" life.

The pants go to each girl, and the first time around, they each fail to really do anything profound while wearing their magic Pants. But when each girl gets the Pants for a second time during the summer, they learn something about their lives and find a way to, essentially, the moral of their summer.

I loved that these girls grew and changed over their summer. They were each prejudiced about who they were and what they were doing, but all four girls learned valuable lessons that helped to make them into better people.