Forever in Blue

This is the fourth book by Ann Brashares in the “Travelling Pants” series. The four girls have left school and are doing different things. They haven’t spent time together in ages and they’re finding that the travelling pants aren’t connecting them any longer.

Interesting theme, because the different stories also seemed disconnected. Each one of them are doing very different things – Lena’s doing an art course and having sex; Tibby’s doing a scriptwriting course and having sex; Bridget’s on a dig in Turkey and nearly having sex (with a married man); and Carmen’s acting in a play and not having sex. This is really the book where they’re moving out of adolescence into adulthood and Brashere’s attempting to do it in a natural way. It pretty much works. It’s simplistic, but not overly, and the resolutions aren’t too neat – the only real resolution is their decisions to stay friends, rather than allow the pants to do all the work – and while they’re learning lessons, it’s clear that they’ve got about a million more to go.

Brashares writes in a clear prose which won’t date the books overly, and yet still gives it a young, fresh feel; her characters aren’t too articulate to be realistic, and yet don’t rely too much on colloquialisms which will fade within a year or so. The difficulty with following four characters separately is that none of them can be explored with a lot of depth. There are good moments in all of them, but it’s a tying up of the series rather than a serious coming-of-age novel.