The book Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume, is now my favorite book of all time. The book shows how true friendship should really be, and how hard it is to keep a friendship alive. The book goes back and forth between the past and the future, and is a little confusing in the beginning

“Summer Sisters” starts out in 1977. The main character Vic Leonardis a 12-year-old girl. Before she met Caitlin Summers, she never had any sense of adventure in her life. She grew up being the child who was the most overlooked, because she was the oldest. Both her father and mother worked a lot, so Vic was always taking care of her younger siblings. She had always been the quiet kid, the one who never talked in school and always did her homework. That all changed the day that Caitlin Summers moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Caitlin Summers was the type of girl who was friendly with everyone. The complete opposite of Vic, she was popular and wasn’t the type to care much about school. Her mother is a single parent, and she is rarely home. This allowed Caitlin to be an independent spirit. Somehow Caitlin and Vic’s personalities come together and form an unbreakable bond. The day it all started is when Caitlin sat on Vic’s desk and asked her to come with her to visit her father on the Vineyard during the summer vacation. Vic’s mother was against the idea thinking Caitlin would be a bad influence in her daughter’s life. This first trip to Caitlin’s fathers house on the Vineyard forms a never-ending friendship.

During their first summer of being “summer sisters” they have an adventure of their lives. Vic loved the feeling of not having her mother bicker at her all the time, and only worrying about what she wanted in her life. She was tired of being the shy, quiet Vic who didn’t talk to anyone. During their first summer, they meet the “boys of their dreams” Bru and Von who were both 16 .These boys actually turn out to be Caitlin and Vic’s actual husbands later on in the book.

The book goes on about the girls going through many summers together, with their friendship all the way into college. My favorite part in the whole book is when Caitlin deceives Vic and marries Bru. Vic faces both heartache and anger. How could her best friend marry the man she loves? . They ended up not talking for three years. In that time, Caitlin and Bru had a child. Vic falls in love with a guy named Gus. They got married and starting a family of their own, but even the hurt that Caitlin caused still remained. The girls decide to hold a truce, but before they meet up Caitlin runs off to Paris with some friend from college, leaving Bru to care for their child Mazie. No one hears from Caitlin for two whole years. Then one day, Vic gets a call from Caitlin saying she will pay for a plane ticket to Paris to come visit her. Vic, who is seven months pregnant, decides to go to finally see Caitlin after all of these years. When Vic gets there, she sees that 30-year-old Caitlin has finally grown up. The irresponsible, daredevil that Caitlin once was, is now replaced with a serious, hard working woman. They end up going out to dinner and talking about the past that they have shared. Caitlin drops a bombshell on Vic, and explains why she hurt her all of these years. She tells her why she did all those horrible things was because she was jealous of everything that Caitlin had.

At the end of the trip, Vic asks Caitlin to come back. Caitlin said to give her two days, and then she will call Vic with an answer. But Vic never gets that call. Instead, she gets a call from Caitlin’s boyfriend in Paris telling her that he found Caitlin’s boat by the lake unattended. They never found Caitlin’s body.

Vic doesn’t know what to do. Her best friend of twenty years is now gone forever. Caitlin was her first friend, her other half, her confidante, the person who mattered to her the most. Even during the good and the bad, Vic still loved Caitlin with all of her heart.

She goes on with her life, but never missing a day where she thinks back to that one summer where she finally found out the true meaning of friendship.

I would recommend this book to anyone. It is so heartfelt and delivers such a good message about true friendship. It is definitely worth reading.