New reads:

I just finished reading Summer Sisters by Judy Blume. I have read just about every single book Judy Blume has ever written -- Freckle Juice, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Super Fudge, Blubber, Here's to You, Rachel Robinson, Tiger Eyes, Deenie, and my personal favorite, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. She was a major influence on me during my most influential years. She taught me a lot about the world and life and I feel, in a way, that we are old friends. Apparently, I'm not the only one (see this book, which, yes, I own and love). Judy Blume played such a large role in the lives of the women of my generation. It's like we're somehow all connected. She is the tie that binds us. So, I'm not sure how I missed this book of hers. Somewhere along the way, it slipped by me. But then I saw it at one of the recent library book sales and snatched it up.

I read it as part of the "26 Books to Read in 2015" challenge (more on that here). It's #15: a book set in summer.

It's an easy, light, and enjoyable read. As if I expected anything less from Ms. Blume. Here's what it's about, if you're interested:

"When Victoria Leonard answers the phone in her Manhattan office, Caitlin's voice catches her by surprise. Vix hasn't talked to her oldest friend in months. Caitlin's news takes her breath away -- and Vix is transported back in time to the moment she and Caitlin Somers first met, back to the casual betrayals and whispered confessions of their long, complicated friendship, back to the magical island where two friends became summer sisters.

Caitlin dazzled Vix from the start, sweeping her into the heart of the unruly Somers family, into a world of privilege, adventure, and sexual daring. Vix's bond with her summer family forever reshapes her ties to her own, opening doors to opportunities she had never imagined -- until the summer she falls passionately in love. Then, in one shattering moment on a moonswept Vineyard beach, everything changes, exposing a dark, under-current in h er extraordinary friendship with Caitlin that will haunt them through the years.

As their story carries us from Santa Fe to Martha's Vineyard, from New York to Venice, we come to know the men and women who shape their lives. And as we follow the two women on the paths they each choose, we wait for the inevitable reckoning to be made in the fine spaces between friendship and betrayal, between love and freedom.

Summer Sisters is a riveting exploration of the choices that define our lives, of friendship and love, of the families we are born into and those we struggle to create. For every woman who has ever had a friend too dangerous to forgive and too essential to forget, Summer Sisters will glue you to every page, reading and remembering."

It's marketed as an adult book but really, it felt like the same old Judy Blume. Predictable, yes but predictability in a Judy Blume book is one of the things I love most about her. You can count on it. What a comforting thing to be wrapped in her embrace once again after all these years. Some things never change.