Baxlala’s #CBR4 Review #11: Sisterhood Everlasting, by Ann Brashares
I couldn’t help but feel terribly disappointed by this book, even though I knew what was going to happen going in (damn you, Wikipedia). Even knowing what I did, this was just not the story I wanted to read, which is hardly the author’s fault, but there it is.
Terrible spoilers to follow. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Seriously, don’t click on this if you don’t want to know exactly what happens.
Here be spoilers!
The story takes place ten years after the last one, as the girls are all about to turn 30. They’ve mostly fallen out of touch, caught up in their own lives, which, while sad, is a pretty realistic depiction of what happens to friends after high school and college are over.
The girls have ended up in somewhat obvious places, for the most part. Lena is a reclusive art teacher, Carmen is an actress about to enter into a loveless marriage, Bridget lives with Eric and lives a nomadic lifestyle, giving away their stuff all the time and deciding to move at the drop of a hat, and Tibby, the farthest away, has moved to Australia with Brian and…I don’t remember what her job was. Probably something with movies, duh, but IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER because guess what, you guys?
TIBBY DIES.
That’s right. After reaching out to her long-lost friends, arranging a trip for all of them to meet in Greece, SHE DROWNS. They don’t even get to see her, they all get to Greece and she never shows up to pick them up at the airport BECAUSE SHE’S DEAD.
That sounds insensitive. It’s really very well done, but I was so mad that it was even happening. I wanted them to all reconnect! Have some adventures! Wear some pants! Instead, Tibby’s death throws them all into a tailspin of grief and bad decisions. Lena becomes even more withdrawn, Carmen throws herself into planning her wedding to a walking, talking douchebag, and Bridget LITERALLY runs away from her problems.
Part of me is really glad I read this because now I’ve finished the series and can say with total certainty that I’m going to pretend this book never happened. TOO SAD, BRASHARES, TOO SAD.
OK, not really. Obviously I can’t pretend it never happened (unless I can somehow Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind myself), also I DID enjoy reading most of it, so I’ll say this: the story was done well. It made me feel feelings. It happened. I cried. The end.
Cannonball Read IV 
I resent that Tibby died very much, but I did like the ending.
P.S. I went in to this book with NO IDEA that anyone was going to die and it pretty much floored me. Like, literally.
I cannot even imagine going into this book blind. I tried to take a moment after it happened and think, “whoa, what if I hadn’t been horribly spoiled?” but it was hard to put myself in that place.
I also liked the ending.
It was like being punched in the heart by the Hulk.