I am an emotional wreck. Much like when I first read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants a few years ago, I was not prepared for all the emotions this book brought up. You strike again, Ann Brashares! Everything in this book probably affected me more than the previous ones because I'm the same age Tibby, Carmen, Lena, and Bridget are now. And at this point in our lives, the friends we have are those we've chosen to have for the rest of our lives, so the loss of any one of them (for whatever reason) is devastating. It means you've lost a part of your future as well as your present and your past. I didn't even know this book was being planned until the day it was published so I remained spoiler-free, which is good because had I known, I may have chosen to skip this book. I'm still recovering from Sweet Valley Confidential and the carnage Francine Pascal did to my memories of Sweet Valley High. I was afraid Brashares was pulling a Pascal after the first few chapters of Sisterhood Everlasting, but she came through. Tibby, Carmen, Lena, and Bridget are in different places (literally and figuratively) and ten years have passed since Forever In Blue but unlike the characters in Sweet Valley Confidential, they're still recognizable. I still felt an emotional connection to the characters even though I hadn't read the books in years and didn't particularly feel the need to read a 5th book. At times it felt like an extended epilogue, but it was still a pleasant reunion -- one I hadn't planned but still came away feeling positive about -- with characters I once loved.