3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows by Ann Brashares

summer is a time to grow 

seeds
Polly has an idea that she can't stop thinking about, one that involves changing a few things about herself. She's setting her sights on a more glamorous life, but it's going to take all of her focus. At least that way she won't have to watch her friends moving so far ahead.

roots
Jo is spending the summer at her family's beach house, working as a busgirl and bonding with the older, cooler girls she'll see at high school come September. She didn't count on a brief fling with a cute boy changing her entire summer. Or feeling embarrassed by her middle school friends. And she didn't count on her family at all. . . 

leaves
Ama is not an outdoorsy girl. She wanted to be at an academic camp, doing research in an air-conditioned library, earning A's. Instead her summer scholarship lands her on a wilderness trip full of flirting teenagers, blisters, impossible hiking trails, and a sad lack of hair products. 

It is a new summer. And a new sisterhood. Come grow with them.

When I found out that Ann Brashares had written another book based on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants I was like WHATT??? I really had no idea. I read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in the 6th grade, which was around 3 years ago. I HAD NO CLUE SHE WOULD WRITE ANOTHER BOOK FOR MY AGE GROUP (ish)!


3 Willows talks about three girls (not four, like the sisterhood) and it shows even though how they've grown apart, they'll always be close to one another. The Idea of 3 Willows is that their roots go deep, just like the friendships of these three girls. It does (yay!) mention some of the original sisterhood members, and even an appearance from Lena, Brian (Tibby's Boyfriend), Effie (Lena's Sister), Bridget and Tibby's family (Younger Sister and Brother, and Mom). It was exciting to see (read) the return of the former sisterhood and people associated with them. Effie did have quite a large role in this book for Jo's part and Brian talks to Polly in one part. 


I think each story was fascinating in its own way. For Polly's, we want to see whether or not she'll turn out to find that being herself is much better than being a model and that she's not model material, and we hope that her relationship with her mother works out. For Jo, it was finding more about the mysterious, hot guy (who isn't as good as he turned out to be) and how Effie played into this part, and how Jo was feeling about her parent's divorce ("separation"). I liked Ama's story the best, cause she was a normal character, unlike Polly, who was not really liked by anyone, and Jo who was really popular. Ama's story was fascinating as she goes off to camp for trekking through the woods and mountain climbing, even though she wanted to go to a more Academic type of thing. I love, love, LOVED the guy in her story and feel pretty jealous now :P.


3 Willows in an interesting and cute addition to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and is one that can be read by slightly younger readers (notice "slightly") as the original sisterhood was more for teens.