Book Review

Forever In Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

By: Ann Brashares

        Hello, readers! My name is Kelsey Ryan and I am a graduate student studying Literacy at Nazareth College. I am a huge fan of the first three Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, and I was excited to find out that there is a fourth book in the series. I read the first three books of the series when I was in high school and enjoyed watching the movies that came out shortly after. Somehow, I lost track of the series until I recently became involved with the Teen Book Festival through one of my graduate courses.

I was eager to find out what was going on in the lives of the four best friends Lena, Carmen, Tibby, and Bridget. I wondered how the character’s lives had changed now that they were in college. Most of all, however, I could not wait to see what the fate of the pants would be.

Readers who are not familiar with the first three books in the series will still find themselves engaged in a story about love and friendship. Lena, Bridget, Carmen, and Tibby are four girls who have been best friends for as long as they can remember. In the first novel of the series, the girls are sophomores in high school and will be spending their first summer ever apart. While the girls all look different and have different interests, they stumble across a pair of pants that fit them all perfectly. They decide to create a schedule for mailing the pants to one another throughout the summer, along with a letter to keep each other updated. Throughout the series, this magical pair of pants keeps the girls connected.

In this forth and final edition, Forever In Blue, the girls find themselves in different places for the summer following their first year at college. The girls come to the realization that phone calls, emails, and the Traveling Pants are one of the only things holding their friendship together as it becomes more difficult for all of them to all be in the same place at the same time. As each character deals with their own struggles, they all must find ways to keep their friendships alive despite being so far apart. It takes a crisis in the end of the book to bring the girls together showing the strength and unbreakable bond of true friendship.