Post by Charlynn on Oct 31, 2010 18:56:33 GMT -5
The Last Summer (of You & Me)
In her novel The Last Summer (of You & Me), Ann Brashares, author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, tells the story of three childhood friends - sisters Alice and Riley and their friend Paul - as they struggle to become adults. They met at the beach every summer, and then spent the rest of the year apart, but their bond was never severed, not even when Paul stayed away for three summers during the time when he and Alice were both in college. However, underneath the friendship, there is a love and an attraction between Paul and Alice that threatens to pull the three friends apart, forever changing the precarious balance on their delicate friendship.
What's odd about this book is that I really didn't like the characters, but I enjoyed the book itself, and I think this is because the events were just too honest NOT to be appreciated. Paul was a the son of a rich man who married beneath him. His father committed suicide, and his mother was selfish, a terrible mother, and he grew up hating money and those people who had it and those who wanted it simply because it represented the only thing he had and all the things he wanted but couldn't get. Riley is a carefree spirit, the typical Peter Pan character who doesn't want to grow up and wants those around her to stay the same as well, and her younger sister Alice is too afraid of losing her sister to move forward with her own life.
However, eventually, Paul and Alice succumb to their attraction, but when tragedy strikes, and Riley becomes sick, Alice pulls away from Paul and punishes herself, stopping her own life while her sister's is put on hold. He becomes rude and belligerent, purposely hurtful as his confusion and anger over losing Alice overwhelms him, unaware of his best friend, Riley's, sickness. It's only through her eventual death that Riley realizes that she's holding the two people she loves the most in the world hostage in their own perpetually suspended youth. Once she passes away, it's like the bonds that were holding both Alice and Paul back from becoming the adults they were meant to be are lifted. It's only in the final pages of the book that the lead characters finally become likable, because they finally grow up. It's sad, though, that it takes death to make this happen, but isn't that often the case? Like I said, The Last Summer (of You & Me) isn't necessarily likable, but it's truthful, and, sometimes, that's more important.
In her novel The Last Summer (of You & Me), Ann Brashares, author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, tells the story of three childhood friends - sisters Alice and Riley and their friend Paul - as they struggle to become adults. They met at the beach every summer, and then spent the rest of the year apart, but their bond was never severed, not even when Paul stayed away for three summers during the time when he and Alice were both in college. However, underneath the friendship, there is a love and an attraction between Paul and Alice that threatens to pull the three friends apart, forever changing the precarious balance on their delicate friendship.
What's odd about this book is that I really didn't like the characters, but I enjoyed the book itself, and I think this is because the events were just too honest NOT to be appreciated. Paul was a the son of a rich man who married beneath him. His father committed suicide, and his mother was selfish, a terrible mother, and he grew up hating money and those people who had it and those who wanted it simply because it represented the only thing he had and all the things he wanted but couldn't get. Riley is a carefree spirit, the typical Peter Pan character who doesn't want to grow up and wants those around her to stay the same as well, and her younger sister Alice is too afraid of losing her sister to move forward with her own life.
However, eventually, Paul and Alice succumb to their attraction, but when tragedy strikes, and Riley becomes sick, Alice pulls away from Paul and punishes herself, stopping her own life while her sister's is put on hold. He becomes rude and belligerent, purposely hurtful as his confusion and anger over losing Alice overwhelms him, unaware of his best friend, Riley's, sickness. It's only through her eventual death that Riley realizes that she's holding the two people she loves the most in the world hostage in their own perpetually suspended youth. Once she passes away, it's like the bonds that were holding both Alice and Paul back from becoming the adults they were meant to be are lifted. It's only in the final pages of the book that the lead characters finally become likable, because they finally grow up. It's sad, though, that it takes death to make this happen, but isn't that often the case? Like I said, The Last Summer (of You & Me) isn't necessarily likable, but it's truthful, and, sometimes, that's more important.