** spoiler alert ** 
 I had no idea this book existed until I found it at a yard sale a few weeks ago. I paid my fifty cents. I am so glad I didn't know of it until then, instead of paying 25 dollars for it. 
 This used to be a series where four girls used a pair of pants as a system of pen-pals as they split up for a few months. The first fifty pages of this book, one of them dies. I threw my book at the wall at this part. 
 My early teens were spent with Bridget, Tibby, Carmen, and Lena. I had this personal connection with all of them. I fell in love with the same boys they did. I wanted to be them. I saw the worst of myself in many of them. 
 So I was hesitant to see them grown up. And it feels like they didn't, because they still have the same insecurities and 'quirks' about them they had at fifteen. Which was awesome for fifteen, but they still acted like high schoolers the entire book. Let's break it down by girl. 
 Bridget- famously impulsive, reckless, and free spirited as a teenage girl. which led her to fall in love, drop everything and travel, and act on her emotions. She was this fun free-spirit who all the boys loved and the girls wanted to be. 
 she's completely absent minded in this book, laid back to the point of stupidity. She packs up her apartment and moves on a whim, dragging her poor boyfriend along with her. she "loses" her cell phone is trash cans. She wants to live like a homeless person, she romanticizes drifters and bums. she gets knocked up (too much of a free spirit to care about birth control!) 
 Yet poor Eric, trying to be a respectable lawyer, gives her space, freedom, money -ten thousand dollars- with no compromise. He takes care of her. She "Keeps him for overworking/being too serious" I was praying he'd leave her. No such luck. 
 Don't get me wrong, I loved Bee. But she's not 18, she's pushing thirty, and her impulses weren't cute anymore. she freaks out over her boyfriend buying her a bed. She makes this man sleep on a mattress like a hipster grad student. she was my biggest problem with this book. she showed no maturity. 
 Carmen- Her entire plot is she's engaged but then she isn't. Her only scene of meaning is a train ride where she has a connection this single father (I actually enjoyed the hell out of this part, but of course she never hears from them in the book again) She's a slightly famous actress, is still materialistic and whiny, and stays engaged to an asshole for the hell of it. Finally, she dumps him. 
 Lena- Lena loves Kostos and won't act on it -BIG SURPRISE! They eventually get back together for the...third, fourth time? I lost track. Lena has the same plot every book, and it revolves around some guy she hooked up with when she was fifteen. I never got true love from them. they barely talked about anything other than a bunch of old people in Greece. They get together. Ten bucks says she breaks things off again. 
 ever since the second book, i kind of hoped she'd get with Paul, who was in NONE of this book. I missed him. He was my favorite boy in the series. 
 Tibby- Drowns in the first fifty pages. Hasn't contacted the girls in years. Is dying of a disease she chooses to tell no one about, even her family. Has a baby she tells no one about. Plans an elaborate way to tell everyone about each of these things before drowning in Greece. Gives no one any way of figuring out on their own. 
 I feel like the only lesson the book teaches is the boy you fell in love with when you were sixteen is the boy you were meant to spend the rest of your life with. Except for Carmen, but she never really lets Carmen find lasting love (I always wondered why that was) 
 i wish i never knew this book existed. I was so disappointed. Tibby might have still been alive in my mind if i hadn't read this. Lena relives the same dilemma. Poor Carmen just fills pages like she does every book. Bee seemed more mature by the third book than she did at 29. It was ridiculous.