Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares

When I was almost done reading The Golden Compass, I was fired from the Swiss Chalet where I had been working for just under a month as a server.  I had been in 'training' the entire time and was only on my 5th shift serving tables by myself when they (the owner and her son) called me into the office at the end of it to say they didn't feel I was catching on quick enough and they didn't feel comfortable putting me on the night shift.  It was very, very awkward.  I've never been fired before, have never had someone say I wasn't picking something up, or even that I wasn't doing well (at anything)......so it was a pretty new experience.

When I walked out and got into my (freezing) car I also realized it was something of a relief knowing I'd never have to see those particular people again.  I have been very lucky in my working career to have always worked for (and with) exceptionally great people, and I know first-hand how valuable a fantastic manager is.  So I suppose it was only a matter of time before I had the polar opposite experience.  The upside to everything was that I've discovered that I really liked working as a server, and as a part-time job it definitely suits me (I love being busy, and working hard). So hopefully I'll find a position somewhere better in the near future.

Anyway, I mention all that because it is the reason I've had so much empty time on my hands lately.  That night I went home and finished Golden Compass; the next day I woke up knowing I wanted to do nothing but lay on my sunny couch and re-read this Sisterhood book, and let my wounded ego rest.

Every Wednesday I go and join a group of awesome girls in a shabby arena; huddled on unforgiving benches we gossip and watch our boyfriends/friends/brothers play hockey.  Before Christmas I caught a glimpse of this book in my boyfriend's sister's bag and had a conversation with her about how much I had loved it.  On Christmas day at her parent's house I was very very happy to receive it as a gift from her, and I've been wanting to read it again ever since.

My girlfriends and I all tore through the Sisterhood books as they came out when we were in our teens; I remember when the first movie came out we all skipped and went to see it together.  Brashares writes with so much love, and so much reality - everything her girls go through resonates with truth.  This is one reason my friends and I related so strongly to the stories; we could clearly see ourselves, and our friendship, reflected within them.

This last book is like an unexpected gift. It is a fantastic and unique experience to get to re-visit characters you 've loved for so long, and to re-visit them as adults is even better.  Yes, it's true, this book is heart-wrenchingly sad and chock-full of grief.  But that is something that resonates with me too, and sometimes it's a comfort to read what you've felt and lived through, even things that hurt.  I've always loved the lines full of grace and poetry that her books are full of.  I'm in the habit of folding up the bottom corner of pages in books that just ring through my head, and all my copies of her books are full of these bent pages.

This book was the perfect thing for my first day of semi-unemployment (I do work at a theatre but it's only for a few shifts a month).

So lucky for me that my love's sister is so very awesome.