Summer '17 Book 3

The Whole Thing Together by Ann Brashares

I first fell in love with Ann Brashares books about a dozen or more years ago when I read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. She has a way of writing that draws you in and makes you want more. And her writing is so real that you feel you know the characters as people, not just made up on the page. This was no different.

I bought this the Sunday before I went on my very first trip to New York City. I was buying toiletries, but since we were at Target, I looked at the books. Our book selection is still lacking, but there was one copy of this, and it had the magic words "signed copy" on the cover. I knew it had to be mine without even knowing what it was about. I read the blurb in the car, and then more or less forgot about it while I was in the City that Never Sleeps. I started it the night I got back home, and it was lovely because it takes place in Brooklyn and Manhattan, so it was like holding onto my New York adventures a little longer.

Sasha and Ray are the same age and sleep in the same room, but they've never met. They share three older sisters, but they've never met. Ray's mother and Sasha's father were once married, they divorced, and now share the ancestral beach home of Ray's mother because they both feel entitled to it. Every other weekend, Ray lives at the house with his parents, as well as every other week during the summer. On the weekends and weeks that Ray's family isn't there, Sasha's family is. Their shared siblings are there whenever they want to be.

So, you'd think this is about Ray and Sasha, but it really isn't. It's about all of the siblings. Smart and in love Emma, who meets the love of her life, Jamie. Ethereal and knowing Quinn, who centers everybody. Saucy and young Mattie, who just wants to find her place in the world. Arguably, we learn more about the older siblings than we do about Ray and Sasha. These five "children" show what it's like to be children of divorce, both the children prior to the divorce and the ones that were the products of the divorce.

Great book. A little sad at times, but that's the way life is. It's not all sunshine and roses, and books should reflect that.