17. 3 Willows - Ann Brashares

The Sisterhood Grows
For: young YA
Published: 2009
320 pgs.
Rating: 3.5
Finished: Mar. 15, 2009

The subtitle is a little misleading. The "original" four girls of the sisterhood are referred to briefly in a couple of spots within the book, and Effie makes an appearance, but otherwise it's about three brand new girls who have been best friends since third grade. They live in Bethesda, Maryland. They've grown apart throughout eighth grade and now, the summer before high school, they have little to do with each other. All three are in different places during the summer and we hear their stories from their points-of-view. Brashares really gets into their heads and develops their characters well. She tells their stories in prose without using the device of letters and emails like she does in the Sisterhood books. A few paragraphs to a few pages for each girl, then it's on to another - but not in a disconcerting way. It flows well, and makes sense.

Jo, pretty and popular, is spending the summer at Rehoboth Beach with her mom. She's working hard to fit in with the cool crowd. Her brother, Finn, was killed two years before, and it's been particularly difficult for her mother - so much so that her parents have decided to separate. She feels almost estranged from her dad.....

Polly, thoughtful, helpful, feels unnoticed by everyone, including her tatooed and pierced artist mom. The only way she can think of to feel "seen" is to go to a modeling class for the summer. She's not modeling material - she's short, curvy, and needs orthodonture. Her mom spends all day, every day at her art studio, and by the end of the book Polly finds the reason for that....

Ama is a brainiac. She thinks mainly of getting into Princeton like her sister (even though that's four whole years away!!!) The library and grades are the biggest quests in her life. When she applies for a summer internship, instead of some sort of study and research in a higher institution, she is sent to hike through Yosemite for the summer. This is the last thing in the world that appeals to her. When she discovers she's the only black in her group, that she cannot have any hair products to tame her unruly hair, and that to pass she'll have to rapell down 350 feet.....

Each chapter is preceeded by a bit of information about willow trees. Roots and trees are twined throughout the book - one of the first things the girls did when they met was to plant three willow trees in the woods. This frames the story, and ends it, too.