Story in Review: The Last Summer (of you and me) by Ann Brashares

The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares is one of my favorite books. I first read it when I was about the same age as the main characters, which I think always makes a book feel more immediate to a reader, more pertinent to where they are in their life right then. Yes, it’s the same Brashares as the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fame, but this time she’s written a novel for a slightly older audience.

Alice and her older sister Riley have spent summers on Fire Island for as long as they have been alive. Riley’s partner in crime lives next door. His name is Paul, and Alice is in love with him – and always has been. This summer is the first in three years where they will all be on the island together, and everything that can happen does – for better and for worse.

While the book at it’s heart is a love story, it’s also a novel about true friendship, about growing up and whether or not you can bring your childhood loves with you.

Favorite Quotes:

She preferred to save her lies for the people whose names she knew. – p. 4

You loved what you knew. You couldn’t help it. He couldn’t, though he did try. – p. 6

How familiar it felt to want his wants for him. That much had not changed. – p. 11

[As children] they talked about fish and they talked about God. But it was all the stuff in the middle that came to preoccupy you as you grew older. – p. 18

Sometimes you couldn’t face the sadness of being forgotten until you felt the comfort of being remembered again. – p. 19

So great was Riley’s imagination that she did not bother with the distinction between what was real and what wasn’t. – p. 45

She didn’t deserve it, which was to say she deserved better. – p. 61

There were many things in life like that. You couldn’t imagine it, and then it happened and you couldn’t imagine it hadn’t. – p. 94

Only the places she hadn’t yet visited met her expectations. – p. 105

Maybe there weren’t two kinds of love. Maybe there were a trillion kinds. Or just one. – p. 112

He was weary of being stupid. – p. 124

What if he learned to love what he had? – p. 145

A lifetime of planning could be canceled in less than five minutes, it turned out. – p. 164

Her heart mismanaged its work of beating. – p . 180

What made this a good story? I loved how deftly Brashares captures that mixture of longing and dread Alice feels at seeing Paul again, and having life move forward now that she is an adult. It’s a hard feeling to put into words, and she nails it. It’s also interesting to note that all of the characters in this book are flawed in one way or another, and yet there is something lovable about each of them. I’ve read this book no less than 5 times and every time I find something new. This read through, I felt more compassion for Paul’s mom than I may have in times past, even when she is not the most deserving person.

What could have made this a better story? I can’t think of anything. The story holds up, after multiple reads at multiple ages.

Have you read  The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares? If so, what did you think? 

P.S. If you liked this book, you’ll probably enjoy Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell.