What I liked about this book was Brashares' handle on the plot. Looking back on it, she ran a very tight ship when it came to exposing plot elements. She seemed to know exactly when I needed more information and when my imagination could fill in the gaps. This is something I appreciated very much because I find all too often that authors try to walk their readers through the plot so that there aren't too many surprises that might ruffle the readers' feathers. Brashares doesn't do this unless absolutely necessary and I'm not ashamed to admit that I was surprised at the end and some of my assumptions about what happened were totally smashed. It was awesome. I haven't been that surprised by a book in years. And the best part was that I wasn't even expecting to get fooled. I read my fair share of thrillers/suspense books and I'm always a bit weary that maybe the nice guy we meet at the beginning could very well turn out to be the murderer. But I wasn't expecting to be surprised with this book and it was a nice change of pace.
What I didn't like about this book was that the girls didn't sound any more grown up at thirty than they did at eighteen. I wanted to see their character and personality though older eyes. Maybe have Carmen curse under her breath in Spanish during a meeting, or have Lena get lost in a drawing on the bus to work. Just something to indicate that this is, indeed, ten years later. I didn't get the sense that them being 30 had anything to do with the story. The main hurdles in the plot line could have been dealt with just as well in a fifth book taking place right after the fourth. It felt like the ten year gap was only used as a way to emphasize the fact that the four girls have been separated for a while. In my opinion, this space could have been accomplished with them going to different colleges or something similar. That way, the girls could still sound like teenage girls and it would not have made the characters ring false, which is what I felt happened. At least it was that way in the beginning of the book when Brashares was filling the reader in on the lives of the girls. I felt like the characters were falling flat for the first fifty pages and it was so close to making me put the book down and walk away. The only thing that saved the book for me was the fact that the big plot element happened on page 63 and from there on it didn't matter that the girls were thirty, because their age doesn't have any impact on how they acted the rest of the book. It was about their emotions and relationships and that's when the book hooked me. A little late, but at least it did it at all.
To wrap it up, this was a pretty solid book. I think it does fit in as more of an epilogue than the fifth book in the series, but it was a very good epilogue. All of my questions got answered by the end and it left me with a warm feeling that the Sisterhood will continue on despite the trials and tribulations they've faced. It was a bit slow at the beginning, but I urge readers to push through until the big plot point at about page 60. You'll know exactly which one I mean when you get to it. I wish I could tell you more, but this blog is spoiler fee as always :)
Rating: 3/5 stars
Good epilogue, a little rough, but overall satisfactory
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