From Barnes & Noble
In her first adult novel, the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants makes a journey to Fire Island, where 21-year-old Alice and her slightly older sister, Riley, are sharing a home and an infatuation. Boyish lifeguard Riley values her closeness with longtime neighbor Paul, but their "best friend" relationship has less pull than the attraction he shares with Alice. To protect Riley's feelings, the pair try to keep their blossoming romance secret. In the land of fiction, as in the real world, such furtiveness can't be sustained indefinitely, but in The Last Summer (of You & Me), complications and surprises confront us around every turn.
From the Publisher
In the town of Waterby on Fire Island, the rhythms and rituals of summer are sacrosanct: the ceremonial arrivals and departures by ferry; yacht club dinners with terrible food and breathtaking views; the virtual decree against shoes; and the generational parade of sandy, sun-bleached kids, running, swimming, squealing, and coming of age on the beach.
Set against this vivid backdrop, The Last Summer (of You and Me) is the enchanting, heartrending story of a beach-community friendship triangle among three young adults for whom summer and this place have meant everything. Sisters Riley and Alice, now in their twenties, have been returning to their parents’ modest beach house every summer for their entire lives. Petite, tenacious Riley is a tomboy and a lifeguard, always ready for a midnight swim, a gale-force sail, or a barefoot sprint down the beach. Beautiful Alice is lithe, gentle, a reader and a thinker, and worshipful of her older sister. And every summer growing up, in the big house that overshadowed their humble one, there was Paul, a friend as important to both girls as the place itself, who has now finally returned to the island after three years away. But his return marks a season of tremendous change, and when a simmering attraction, a serious illness, and a deep secret all collide, the three friends are launched into an unfamiliar adult world, a world from which their summer haven can no longer protect them.
Ann Brashares has won millions of fans with her blockbuster series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, in which she so powerfully captured the emotional complexities of female friendship and young love. With The Last Summer (of You and Me), she moves on to introduce a new set of characters and adult relationships just as true, endearing, and unforgettable. With warmth, humor, and wisdom, Brashares makes us feel the excruciating joys and pangs of love—both platonic and romantic. She reminds us of the strength and sting of friendship, the great ache of loss, and the complicated weight of family loyalty. Thoughtful, lyrical, and tremendously moving, The Last Summer (of You and Me is a deeply felt celebration of summer and nostalgia for youth.
Anita Shreve
Ann Brashares's new book will delight all of her Traveling Pants fans—now grown-up and ready for this very adult novel of love, loss and the beauty of intense family bonds. (Anita Shreve, New York Times bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife and A Wedding in December)
Entertainment Weekly
Natural, insightful, and affecting. A-.
New York Times
Would do nicely under a beach umbrella.
Miami Herald
A vivid elegy for youth...Brashares is wise as well as sentimental. She sagely remembers just how it feels to be young, lost, and in love. The Last Summer (of You and Me) is a weeper: If you don't grow misty there's something a bit shifty about the state of your heart.
The Washington Post
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Kim Edwards
Compelling...steeped in the familiar longings for lost time that readers seeking the carefree pleasure of a summer will enjoy.
USA Today
The Last Summer is as much a treatise on loyalty and letting go of childish ways as it is on a summer of love.
People
[Those with] a hankering for a breezy summer read will easily relate to Brashares's restless threesome of lost souls.
Vancouver Sun
Get out your handkerchiefs. A perfect summer novel.
Cosmopolitan
An unputdownable beach book calls for love, deceit, and sex. And The Last Summer (of You and Me)...has all those elements.
Redbook
When summertime neighbors Alice and Paul realize their feelings for go deeper than friendshipm they're afraid to share the news of their clandestine affair with Riley, Alice's sister and Paul's best friend. But then a darker, more tragic secret threatens to come between them. The page-turning pace of Ann Brashares's The Last Summer (of You & Me) makes it a perfect beach read.
Adriana Trigiani
Funny, deep and true, this one will keep you reading long after the sun has gone down. (Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and Lucia, Lucia)
The Washington Post -
Kim Edwards
Despite its serious themes The Last Summer (of You and Me) is full of optimism and too neatly resolved. But it's steeped in the familiar longings for lost time that readers seeking the carefree pleasures of a summer will enjoy.
Publishers Weekly
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsauthor delivers her first novel for adults, a treacly tale about the tribulations a trio of longtime friends encounter. For as long as she can remember, 21-year-old Alice has spent summers on Fire Island with her parents and older sister, Riley. Riley, 24, is a beach lifeguard, more boyish in both looks and spirit than sweet, feminine Alice. An island neighbor and Riley's best friend, Paul, whose father is dead and mother mostly absent, returns to the island after two years away and must decide whether to sell his family's house there. More importantly, he and Alice finally act on an attraction they've felt for years, but they keep their frequent nuzzling quiet so as not to hurt Riley. Riley, meanwhile, has her own problems that could ruin Alice and Paul's clandestine romance and just about everything else. Brashares's YA roots are on display: the girls and Paul act like high school kids (Riley threatens to move out of the house unless everyone butts out; Paul and Alice are stricken with the most saccharine of puppy love), and anything below the surface is left untouched. It's a beach read, for sure, but a mediocre one. (June)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Library Journal
Having conquered YA fiction with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and its sequels, Brashares takes on adult fiction with this story of a young woman who's getting leery of her talent for returning lost objects. But reuniting a backpack with its charming male owner turns out to be one smart move. With a 15-city tour. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A novel about sisters, friendship, irrevocable loss, blossoming love, old betrayals and secrets, from bestselling YA writer Brashares (Forever in Blue, 2007, etc.). Clearly aimed at the author's maturing fan base, the book opens with 21-year-old Alice sitting barefoot in the midday sun, waiting for the ferry that will bring a mercurial and beloved childhood pal back to Fire Island. Paul spent his summers there next door to Alice and her older sister Riley, forming a triumvirate that shared growing pains, fears and hopes for the future. His wealthy but wayward father, who named him for Paul McCartney, died from a drug overdose when the boy was very young. Now, his beautiful Italian mother, Lia, flits in and out of his life. As Riley, who works as a lifeguard, watches the water for those who've gotten in over their heads, Alice begins to question her feelings for Paul. The narrative moves back and forth between past and present, showing the three best friends balancing their daily lives with their special summers. They negotiate changing relationships, a dark secret that affects Alice's family and a tragedy that alters everything-from their friendship to their futures. Brashares writes with a spare hand about the evolving ties between Paul and the sisters, detailing Fire Island summers with believable and easy familiarity. But the characters, although likeable, never really come alive, and neither does the novel. Slow-moving, deliberately paced coming-of-age tale oddly lacking in passion, though a built-in readership will undoubtedly want to read it anyway.
What People Are Saying
Anita Shreve
Ann Brashares's new book, The Last Summer (of You and Me), will delight all of her Traveling Pants fans-now grown-up and ready for this very adult novel of love, loss and the beauty of intense family bonds. (Anita Shreve, New York Times bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife and A Wedding in December)
Adriana Trigiani
Ann Brashares has written a glorious novel of unrequited love, longing and the meaning of friendship in The Last Summer (of You and Me). She weaves a tale full of delicious plot twists and revelations that will surprise and enthrall you. Riley and Alice are sisters, their relationship is as potent and complex as the real thing. Funny, deep and true, this one will keep you reading long after the sun has gone down. (Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and Lucia, Lucia)
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