Rating: 
Summary: Best by Blume!
Review: This latest novel by Judy Blume just blew me away. Summer Sisters is truly one in which I am going to go back to, and reread alot. In this book, Vix and Caitlin meet at a young age. Caitlin invited Vix to spend the summer with her and her rich family, and it turns out she would be spending more than one summer! I really liked the relationhip with Vix and Bru, that's probably why I liked the book so much. I didn't really like the side-characters that much, because they weren't in the plot too much and had bad development as the story proceeded.Summer Sisters is a great read for teens and adults. I don't know why Judy decided this to be an adult book...it fits better decribition as a teen book. I highly recomend this to anyone that's mature, because there is some sexual content. This is an awesome read and I know you'll be rereading too!...
Rating: 
Summary: You got sand WHERE?
Review: I'd enjoyed "Smart Women" and "Wifey" -- so when I picked up "Summer Sisters", I was pleasurably anticipating a fun, witty, raunchy page-turner. I got one out of three: "Summer Sisters" is raunchy -- too raunchy for Ms. Blume's teen audience. Unfortunately, it's also too poorly written for adults. "Summer Sisters" traces the story of two girlfriends -- who spend their summers at one girl's family beach house (hence the book's title) -- from puberty to adulthood. This book has been criticized for its sex and vulgarity, which I don't object to as such. The problem with "Summer Sisters" is not that it's sexy and vulgar -- although it is -- but that it's really badly written. Really, REALLY badly written. Regarding the two main characters: Caitlin (as mentioned elsewhere, her name is ridiculously anachronistic; character names in this book are implausible and/or sound like something from a soap opera) is a one-dimensional spoiled rich kid -- selfish, irresponsible, devoid of ethics. Victoria ("Vix"), is a one-dimensional noble poor kid -- virtuous, hardworking, toxically compliant -- lapping up Caitlin's ill-treatment without a peep of protest. Vix and Caitlin are both so stereotypical and irksome that I couldn't manage the least shred of feeling for either. But simply making Vix a meek martyr and Caitlin a selfish brat wasn't enough to designate them "Good Girl" and "Bad Girl". Bad girls in popular culture only express their "badness" by acting out sexually -- never by poisoning pigeons or robbing a bank or littering -- so in classic time-honored fashion, Vix is "good" because she's sexually repressed, and Caitlin is "bad" because she's sexually liberated. This is outdated, sexist nonsense -- if it was ever a valid delineation to begin with -- but it's particularly lacking in believability given that the girls come of age in the 1970s, the most sexually freewheeling era in modern history, when anything was allowed except saying No. It would have been completely unrealistic to have Vix remain a virgin throughout the story -- to say nothing of the fact that the book would have sold considerably fewer copies -- but Blume nearly "succeeds". Vix and Caitlin start out with the same curiosity about sex as many preadolescents -- they even fondle each other, apparently to titillate pedophile readers -- but once Vix reaches dating age, Blume relentlessly forces her to walk the straight and narrow. Caitlin, in contrast, takes the experimental attitude that might be expected of someone who matured sexually in the 1970s. She gives free rein to her impulses, having sex for fun, adventure, or curiosity. Caitlin's thoughts/motivations are never so much as glimpsed (despite the fact that minor characters get long rambling monologues), but she seems to have a brisk, no-nonsense attitude about sex, rather than smothering it in mysticism and sentiment. We're obviously supposed to think that Caitlin's sexuality, unmitigated even by the obligatory guilt-ridden hand-wringing, marks her as dissolute and self-destructive; and conclude, when she meets her inevitable bad end in a see-it-coming-a-mile-away "surprise", that it serves her right. Von and Bru (see previous comment about character names), fit right in with the program. Von, Caitlin's boy-toy, is a twentyish construction worker who jumps into bed with anybody willing. Bru, Vix' boyfriend, is also a twentyish construction worker, but -- unlike Von or the horndog construction workers that we women encounter in real life when they yell crude remarks at us -- he's in love with Vix, wants to marry her, waits years until Vix is ready to have sex, etc. So, Caitlin can have all the no-strings sex she wants, but has to be the "bad guy"; and Vix can be the "good guy" so long as she never falls off her pedestal. Terrific. A particularly nasty bit of class bias surfaces when one of Von's trailer-trashy girlfriends, Starr, (I must admit that, in this case, the cheesy name works -- can't you just *see* her shag haircut and batwing eyeliner?), complains that Vix and Caitlin were off-limits at sixteen, whereas the boys she dated at sixteen expected her to provide sex. It's supposed to be self-evident that being sexually exploited is all Starr deserves; and that she clearly isn't entitled to the same safety and respect as a girl from a rich family like Caitlin, or a hanger-on to a rich family like Vix. There are far too many other characters, most with no discernible purpose. They marry, divorce, meander in and out of the story at random (some of them are introduced once and then disappear) and wander off on story threads that are then dropped and never mentioned again. Eventually, Vix marries' somebody; after awhile I stopped even trying to keep track of who everybody was' who's described as, "The greatest love of her life' everything that happened before seemed irrelevant" Bru, who was in the same state as Vix for two months of each year and knew her for ten months total, gets the whole book -- he can't kiss Vix without Blume describing it in detail -- and the schmoe she marries gets *one sentence*? That's it for "the love of her life"? Granted, the entire ending is rushed and has a tacked-on feel, i.e., "And then they all fell off a cliff and died, The End" -- but the discrepancy is particularly glaring here. If she's so madly in love with What's-His-Face that Bru is rendered irrelevant, how come Bru gets three hundred times as much ink? This isn't a book, it's a first draft. Sure, I wish I'd had a gorgeous hunk madly in love with me when I was in high school. And sure, I wish I'd had a friend whose family was willing to bring me to their beach house every summer AND pay my way through Harvard. But it wasn't worth slogging through 400 tepid, clumsy pages to read about.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: One of my favourite books of all time, one of those books where you find something new in it every time you read it. Judy Blume writes in a deceptively simple way, but her characters are stunning complex, as is the case with her young adult novels. Although it may seem like it's merely a book about two friends who fall in love with the same man, it's really about their tumultuous friendship. It's about Vix (Victoria), a smart girl from a deprived background, whose entry into the privileged world of Caitlin Somers will change her life forever. Blume doesn't hold back as she describes Vix's infatuation with the intriguing Caitlin, her desire to be a part of the family, her adolescent crushes, and her acceptance of Caitlin's betrayals. From early on, there are hints that Caitlin is troubled, and foreshadowing of what is to come. The story takes us through eighteen years in their lives, with the majority of the book taking place from Vix's point of view, although interspersed with first-person vignettes from the emotionally rich supporting characters like Vix's parents, Caitlin's family, and a few of the romantic interests. Although marketed as an adult novel, Blume's strength (as in 'Smart Women') is in capturing the teenage years perfectly, and is best read as a young adult book with more honesty and less censorship.
Rating:
Summary: Addicted
Review: The relationship between Vix and Bru is what really got me addicted.This book is brilliant. I couldnt put it down.
Part two would be delicious!
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING
Review: An absolutely AMAZING book. i enjoyed every minute of it, and read it in 2 days.
Rating:
Summary: summer sisters
Review: i loved this book, judy blume is so uncencerd i just couldnt stop reading. it's very taboo if you know what i mean.
Rating:
Summary: good
Review: i thought this was a fun interesting book its a good read if u wanna spend a few hrs hanging out by the pool on a chair reading
Rating:
Summary: I hated that it had to end!
Review: I picked up this book off of my mother's coffee table. I was assigned to read a book of my choice as an easy, end of the year AP English assignment and I was a little short on cash to go out and buy a book. I already had this one at home and I figured it didn't really matter how good or bad it was, just that I could get through it quick enough to get a decent grade to end the year. Once I started reading I couldn't put it down. I was instantly pulled into the story line and found myself falling in love with Caitlin and "Vix." I would HIGHLY recomend reading this book. It covers a whole era of these women and the different roads they travel in their journey to adulthood. There is truly something for everyone in Blume's novel - love, adventurous rebellion, heartbreak, betrayal in the most primative, girlish way, tears, laughter, and realization of the direction of an individual's life. In the end one may come to understand that some people are strong enough to live the life they create for themselves and that some are not; that everyone's actions are ultimately motivated by the desire for happiness.
Rating: 
Summary: Girly Nonsense
Review: Full disclosure: I'm just beginning to read fiction again. I have been a hard-core nonfiction/periodical reader of late and the novel-reading thing is a bit wierd to get back into. This was VERY highly recommended to me. Because of the passionate exhortation I thought I might as well give it a shot. In a nutshell, this book is of a adolescent friendship that is both stronger and weaker than its two participants. Vix is the stoic from a splintering New Mexico family. Her mother, who struggled so hard to bring to term her four children, has basically abdicated her role because she simply can't handle the demands of four kids, a nearly-silent husband and being an aide to an old rich woman. Vix, the oldest, is dying to get away from an environment rank with disappointment and cynicism. What better way than as the 'summer sister' of the new girl in class, Caitlin? Caitlin is vibrant, beautiful, sharp and outspoken. She goes every summer to Marthas Vineyard to stay with her dad, Lamb. She needs a friend to go with her, and she picks the quiet Vix. Of course this book is filled with the type of summer adventures that can rock your world when you are a girl aged 12-18. That is the meat of the book, and I take my hat off to Judy Blume for replicating the type of situations that can be the highlight of being 13 years old. She shows the oddness of the friendship very well. We all know that each friendship we have is wholly different from all others we have, and in the this book we see that. They are summer sisters, no more or less. They are closer than imaginable during the summers at the Vineyard, and yet they move on with their lives when they are apart. You know the friendship is still there, but it's the type that only needs maintenance at scheduled intervals. My main problem with the book was the simplistic way that Caitlin's character developed over the years. She really didn't develop at all. Judy Blume just sort of drops a bomb on you near the end and your opinion of Caitlin totally changes. She becomes a different person to you because her motives have changed. I know the book is really from Vix's perspective, but it would have been nice to know more about Vix's summer sister. This book was easy to read, but I didn't feel the attraction to it that would have made it impossible to put down. When the movie shows up on Lifetime then maybe I'll watch it to see what has been done to it, but I don't think this book merits any more effort on my part than that.
Rating:
Summary: Great Summer Reader.
Review: I read this book in 24 hours. It was hard to put down. It is lite and easy to read. I love all Judy Blume books. I have also read Wifely and that was great also. I enjoy Judy Blumes books because they are great stories to get lost in becuase they are not heavy or serious.
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