Book #56: The Last Summer (of you and me)

Title: The Last Summer (of you and me)
Author: Ann Brashares

Ann Brashares, of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fame, attempts writing for an older audience in The Last Summer (of you and me). Her main characters are no longer teenagers, but young adults, sisters Alice and Riley, ages 21 and 24. For as long as they can remember, Riley and Paul have been best friends. They've spent every summer of their lives together on Fire Island, with Alice in their shadow. But now they're grown up. And Alice, who has loved Paul all her life, decides to make a move. Then something happens to screw it all up...

Can I just say that Alice, Paul and Riley are the most emotionally constipated young adults ever? Ok, I take that back, because when I went to amazon to look up their names for the review, the "If you liked this book, you might also like..." section showed Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach as an option, and Alice, Paul and Riley seem like they're probably tied with Edward and Florence as "most emotionally constipated twentysomethings in modern fiction." I mean, seriously, Riley and Paul are best friends, but she can't tell him for nearly a year that she's dying. She forbids her sister from telling him either, and the poor girl is sleeping with Paul, so instead of telling him anyway, she breaks off their relationship without a word. I don't identify with these people. I wanted to reach into the book and grab them by the shirt collar and yell-- just talk to each other! Thankfully, because they're young and this is an Ann Brashares book, there's a happy ending (for 2 out of 3 of them, anyway).