Forever in Blue Wrap
Aug. 27th, 2025 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
welcometohighwaterTreated (woof) myself to finally finishing my reread of Forever in Blue by Ann Brashares, the fourth installment in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series yesterday, and, as often the case with books, and especially books I have read multiple times, I Have Thoughts. That's one thing I like about rereading--more time to distill the Thoughts. Also I enjoy that I get to visit books at different times in my life, that's good for shifts in perspective and understanding of the world and myself. For instance, the first time I read this book (when it came out, when I was close to finishing high school myself), I absolutely HATED it. Now? Eh. There are a few shining bits that I love, truly love, but also there's stuff that is . . . I guess more boring or out-of-left-field than truly loathsome.
Since these narratives are usually neatly broken down into the separate stories of Bridget, Carmen, Lena, and Tibby, that's how I'm going to look at the book. Except in reverse order of that.
TIBBY Oh my god, it's literally the same story every time with her. I like Tibby fine, I think she's a very realistically drawn character. I like the moody-alt-grungy-artist vibe she's bringing to the party, you know, especially since that's the archetype my high school self most closely aligned with. I think that she and Brian are absolutely the sweetest couple (sucker for friends-to-lovers). That said, in literally all of the books her story is the same. Tibby wants to live bigly and authentically. Tibby encounters someone who lives bigly and authentically, and they inspire her to try. Her actions have consequences. She shuts down, isolates, watches a lot of TV for a bit. She decides she can't keep living that way, makes the brave choice to live bigly and authentically again, resolves never to make the mistake of retreating again. Story over, the end, see you next book for more of the same. Tibby is great. Brian is great. I truly am so found of their characters. Too bad Brashares does NOTHING with them. At times it feels like she came up with Tibby just to have a way to work a dying-kid story into the first book. Give the final book in the series (YIKES THAT'S UP NEXT FOLKS), kinda feels like this could be true.
LENA Again, practically the same story every time, or at least in three of the four so far. Lena and Kostos, Kostos and Lena. It's all longing and agony and overwrought emotionality, and by this book? I am over it. (Again, in preparation for the final book: YIKES.) Which is so unfortunate, because Lena's story in Girls in Pants truly sang. Working with resolve and intention to make her dream of becoming an artist come true? The insights on seeing and on seeing that her growing as an artist gave her? Beautiful. But mostly? That she was not defined by her relationship to Kostos (or to any other boy) in that book made it something really special for me. As a high schooler, I found the tragedy of Lena and Kostos so romantic, but now it's just boring to me.
CARMEN I really enjoyed the authenticity of Carmen as a student just finishing her first year of college in this book. The portrayal of her as a girl who used to have big dog energy in high school (not like, the stereotypical popular--with the undercurrent of mean--energy, but the energy of someone who was someone in their school, if that makes sense) who found she had fallen out of place when reaching college hits so real. Previously she had status because she had her place predefined for her. She had a home, a family she mostly understood her place in, a friend group that she definitely had her place in, an incredibly close and defining friend group. Then she goes to college, totally out of any place she's ever known, completely without the security of her friends for the first extended time in her life, and suddenly she's invisible in a way she does not undderstand? Absolutely relatable. I think most kids going off to college experience at least some of that, if not completely that in their own way. Loved that, loved that her confidence and brashness just dried up, and that her story was all about getting those back. The Shakespeare/acting thing did feel a little bit contrived, but that's mostly because I knew soooo many kids deep into theatre stuff in high school, and I find it hard to buy someone that someone would just kind of stumble into that scene. I think even going into sets, lighting, costuming, whatever, you go with into it with some kind of intention, not just because some girl tells you that you should give it a try. My high school didn't even have a theatre program to speak of, but it still had theatre kids for sure--they just worked in community theatre instead, seeking out what was available to them.
BRIDGET Oh man, over the years Bridget has gone from being absolutely my least favorite to kind of my precious baby girl. I can pinpoint when this happened well enough--it was when I had my first hypomanic episode that I knew to be such. Next time reading through the books, suddenly it was like, oh girl, I get you now. Bridget's story in this has such good bones. Unfortunately, the meat of it has me going, huh? What now? Um are you sure? The idea of Bridget not being sure of what Eric wants when he says he's going to spend the summer in Mexico, the idea of Bridget trying to reclaim her home and rebuild some kind of relationship with her father and her brother--absolutely golden. But the middle interlude of it all, of Bridget . . . jetting off to Turkey? On an archeological dig? Really? The absolutely most random choice, and not in the ha ha fun cutesy "soooo random" way. In the way that truly I have no idea where that could have come from, other than Brashares happened to be reading up on archeology for fun at the time and thought, hey this is interesting and neat! Bee could do this! An compelling thematic hook for sure, but I don't feel like it was well enough developed, and in part that's because of the gross relationship with the married-and-unstable young professor (yuck, Bridget, ew girl).
Anyway, I think that's all I'm going to dash off for now (I gotta get ready for A Day, too), except to say: the next and final book in the series, the Ten Years Later book. It's a doozy. Hang on, I'm probably going to rip it to shreds. It's made me so mad for SO long now.
Since these narratives are usually neatly broken down into the separate stories of Bridget, Carmen, Lena, and Tibby, that's how I'm going to look at the book. Except in reverse order of that.
TIBBY Oh my god, it's literally the same story every time with her. I like Tibby fine, I think she's a very realistically drawn character. I like the moody-alt-grungy-artist vibe she's bringing to the party, you know, especially since that's the archetype my high school self most closely aligned with. I think that she and Brian are absolutely the sweetest couple (sucker for friends-to-lovers). That said, in literally all of the books her story is the same. Tibby wants to live bigly and authentically. Tibby encounters someone who lives bigly and authentically, and they inspire her to try. Her actions have consequences. She shuts down, isolates, watches a lot of TV for a bit. She decides she can't keep living that way, makes the brave choice to live bigly and authentically again, resolves never to make the mistake of retreating again. Story over, the end, see you next book for more of the same. Tibby is great. Brian is great. I truly am so found of their characters. Too bad Brashares does NOTHING with them. At times it feels like she came up with Tibby just to have a way to work a dying-kid story into the first book. Give the final book in the series (YIKES THAT'S UP NEXT FOLKS), kinda feels like this could be true.
LENA Again, practically the same story every time, or at least in three of the four so far. Lena and Kostos, Kostos and Lena. It's all longing and agony and overwrought emotionality, and by this book? I am over it. (Again, in preparation for the final book: YIKES.) Which is so unfortunate, because Lena's story in Girls in Pants truly sang. Working with resolve and intention to make her dream of becoming an artist come true? The insights on seeing and on seeing that her growing as an artist gave her? Beautiful. But mostly? That she was not defined by her relationship to Kostos (or to any other boy) in that book made it something really special for me. As a high schooler, I found the tragedy of Lena and Kostos so romantic, but now it's just boring to me.
CARMEN I really enjoyed the authenticity of Carmen as a student just finishing her first year of college in this book. The portrayal of her as a girl who used to have big dog energy in high school (not like, the stereotypical popular--with the undercurrent of mean--energy, but the energy of someone who was someone in their school, if that makes sense) who found she had fallen out of place when reaching college hits so real. Previously she had status because she had her place predefined for her. She had a home, a family she mostly understood her place in, a friend group that she definitely had her place in, an incredibly close and defining friend group. Then she goes to college, totally out of any place she's ever known, completely without the security of her friends for the first extended time in her life, and suddenly she's invisible in a way she does not undderstand? Absolutely relatable. I think most kids going off to college experience at least some of that, if not completely that in their own way. Loved that, loved that her confidence and brashness just dried up, and that her story was all about getting those back. The Shakespeare/acting thing did feel a little bit contrived, but that's mostly because I knew soooo many kids deep into theatre stuff in high school, and I find it hard to buy someone that someone would just kind of stumble into that scene. I think even going into sets, lighting, costuming, whatever, you go with into it with some kind of intention, not just because some girl tells you that you should give it a try. My high school didn't even have a theatre program to speak of, but it still had theatre kids for sure--they just worked in community theatre instead, seeking out what was available to them.
BRIDGET Oh man, over the years Bridget has gone from being absolutely my least favorite to kind of my precious baby girl. I can pinpoint when this happened well enough--it was when I had my first hypomanic episode that I knew to be such. Next time reading through the books, suddenly it was like, oh girl, I get you now. Bridget's story in this has such good bones. Unfortunately, the meat of it has me going, huh? What now? Um are you sure? The idea of Bridget not being sure of what Eric wants when he says he's going to spend the summer in Mexico, the idea of Bridget trying to reclaim her home and rebuild some kind of relationship with her father and her brother--absolutely golden. But the middle interlude of it all, of Bridget . . . jetting off to Turkey? On an archeological dig? Really? The absolutely most random choice, and not in the ha ha fun cutesy "soooo random" way. In the way that truly I have no idea where that could have come from, other than Brashares happened to be reading up on archeology for fun at the time and thought, hey this is interesting and neat! Bee could do this! An compelling thematic hook for sure, but I don't feel like it was well enough developed, and in part that's because of the gross relationship with the married-and-unstable young professor (yuck, Bridget, ew girl).
Anyway, I think that's all I'm going to dash off for now (I gotta get ready for A Day, too), except to say: the next and final book in the series, the Ten Years Later book. It's a doozy. Hang on, I'm probably going to rip it to shreds. It's made me so mad for SO long now.
