"3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows"

I recently finished reading "3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows" by Ann Brashares for the Book of the Month Club my friend Lauren and I created last year.

Having been a huge fan of Brashares' previous work (with one exception), I was excited to see that she had a new young adult novel out on the shelves that actually takes place in the same universe as the "Sisterhood" series. A consummate fan of young adult literature to begin with, I of course ran out to Borders the week it came out to obtain my own copy.

The premise of "3 Willows" is simple. It is about a group of thirteen-year-old girls, who, having been best friends since childhood, have recently begun to grow apart. New friends have entered the picture - friends from different groups and cliques in school - some cool kids, some smart kids, and in the typical fashion of middle school politics, all completely separate from one another. Polly, Jo, and Ama are not the same girls that they were when they first met - they are no longer the innocent, care-free little girls who planted willow trees in a nearby glen and vowed to be best friends forever. Their lives have taken them each in wildly different directions, and this summer - their last before high school begins - will teach them what it truly means to grow.

Upon flipping through even the very first few pages of the book, one can already feel comfortably at home in this familiar world that Brashares so carefully crafted in the previous "Sisterhood" novels. Her writing style is simple and relatable, her characters easily approachable, and while at times one must remind oneself that the protagonists are in fact only thirteen, the girls themselves are a true, honest picture of those turbulent, confusing early teenage years. Stuck in that gray area between middle school and high school, they three are in a sort of limbo, and this is the summer that will either make them or break them.

Jo is your typical pretty girl - thin, blond, in with the popular crowd, and desperate to advance her status amongst the cooler, older high school kids. Her summer takes her to the beach - to a new job working as a bus girl at a local diner, to an empty beach house, and to the excitement of first kisses and late-night make-outs on the sand.

Ama is the smart one - the library and a tall stack of books are her usual companions, and she aspires to please her parents and follow in the Ivy League footsteps of her older sister. Her original plans of spending the summer tucked away in the corner of a study hall are quickly dashed when she discovers that instead, she will be attending a "Wild Adventures" summer camp program - complete with camping, hiking, bugs, and worst of all, rock climbing.

Polly reminds me a lot of myself at thirteen. Small, with big boobs and dark hair, quiet and self-conscious, and unerringly loyal to friends that would much rather move on with their lives and leave her behind. She discovers that her grandmother - whom she has never known - was a beautiful, famous model, and that she bears a striking resemblance to her. Polly decides to pursue a life of modeling and all that comes with it - restricted caloric intake, severe weight loss, makeup and modeling camp.

Without giving too much away, I will say that all three girls go through some major changes over the summer. One girl discovers that what matters most to her is her family, and friends that will stay by her side through all things. Another girl discovers her own inner strength and ability to overcome any obstacle she sets her mind to. And yet another girl discovers that in order to truly find yourself, sometimes you have to lose yourself first.

I have only two complaints about the entire book. The first is that I wish the three stories had been a little more even - I felt like both Ama and Jo's stories got a lot of "screen time", whereas Polly's story seemed to take a back seat to the other two at times. I found myself reading about Jo and Ama back and forth for quite some time, and wondering what was going on with Polly in the midst of everything. Of course, I could be slightly biased due to the fact that I was very interested in what was going on with Polly specifically, but even still - her story wasn't quite as fleshed out as it could have been, especially when compared with the other two.

My second, and last complaint, once again has to do with Polly's story. Over the course of the summer, she develops what appears to be - and most likely was, in a very real sense - an eating disorder. She loses something like 15 pounds by starving herself, and develops a completely unhealthy obsession with weight loss and poor body image. Anyway, my point being, at the end of the summer, this problem of hers just disappears in the span of a few minutes. She suddenly "decides" that she will never be model-skinny, and so she goes back to eating whatever she wants whenever she wants.

I find this very hard to believe, having suffered from an eating disorder at the very same age. Even though some may argue that Polly was only trying to lose weight for modeling camp, and once her obsession with modeling dissipated, so did her interest in weight loss, the unfortunate thing is, that's not how it really works. There were underlying issues to why Polly began down the path she did - which are certainly addressed a bit towards the end of the book - and eating disorders aren't something you can just have for a little while and then recover from immediately. They take years of either counseling or personal struggle to overcome - and the sad truth is, most people never really recover from them. Women in their twenties, thirties, and sometimes even forties, who may have suffered from an eating disorder in their teens, oftentimes suffer relapses throughout their lives, and are in a near-constant state of struggle with their relationship to food and their bodies. This is most especially true if the woman never went through any professional counseling or received any help to overcome her disorder.

It will be interesting to see where all of this goes if Brashares does in fact end up writing more "3 Willows" books. I, personally, would absolutely love to see this become another series like "Sisterhood" - I really enjoyed reading about these characters and their lives, and I am quite interested to see what adventures, excitement, heartbreaks and life experiences await them over the next four years in high school.

"3 Willows" is definitely a book I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading young adult fiction, who enjoyed the "Sisterhood" series, or really, anyone who was ever a thirteen-year-old girl and experienced what it meant to spend a summer growing into the person you would later become.