April 2009 Book Club: 3 Willows
by Ann Brashares
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 bus girl 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.
We’ve got plenty to say about the book but we’d like to keep that in the comments so that we’re all taking part in the discussion together. We’re just going to offer up some possible discussion questions to help get people talking. You don’t have to stick to just these though, please feel free to share your own thoughts and questions as well. We mostly just want to help get your brain juices flowing with these!
3 Willows Discussion Questions:
- Friends who you’ve grown apart from: what causes it and what brings you back together? Did reading 3 Willows make you think of friendships you’d lost, or consider getting them back on track?
- The Traveling Pants, and the fact that the girls tried different variations of the pants (jacket, scarf, skirt) to bond their friendship in a similar way to the infamous Sisterhood are mentioned in this book. How many other girls have done this? Have you ever had an object that you shared among friends?
- Have you read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books? If so, what overlaps from that series did you enjoying seeing in 3 Willows?
- One of the prominent topics in 3 Willows is overcoming obstacles, such as with Ama and her mountain. Have you ever overcome something that you didn’t believe you could? Ever wished you had but didn’t? Regrets?
- The girls are younger than the first Sisterhood; does this make it more or less appealing? Neither? Will it allow for more books in the series?
- Almost the entire book is spent with the 3 girls separated and barely in communication with each other. What was it that kept them close despite these things?
- The story was “told” in several different ways: first person POV letters from each of the girls, tidbits about willow trees, and the ongoing present day storylines. Why do you think the author chose to do that? Did you like it or would you have preferred one style?
- We selected this book because of our love of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. How do you think 3 Willows compares?
- Each of the 3 main characters is a very different personality, which one do you relate to most and why? Do you think it’s common for friendships to be made up of such truly different people?
So, before I jump into the questions… I thought I’d just give my overall reaction?
I don’t know if it was because I was trying to read this on vacation, around other people, but it took me a few chapters to really get into it. Or, more accurately, a few chapters to really get into the characters. For a little while, I was afraid that I wasn’t going to like the book at all!
But, once we got past the intros and into each of the girls’ stories from the summer, I got a lot more invested in what was happening. By the end, I was BAWLING! Granted some things in the book touch pretty close to home at the moment and, as I told Jody, one of the characters reminded me of one of my nieces. It made her story much more poignant for me.
So, in the end, I really loved the book but it was a little slow going there in those first few chapters.
No, I agree. It was a little slow to get going. And I was a little concerned about not liking the characters at first also. It didn’t have me sobbing like the first SHotTP series did, but I was a little teary at there end there too.
I’m with you girls – took me a few chapters (maybe it was the California sun causing me to not concentrate), but once I got going, and by the time my back was burnt to a crisp, I was through and just satisfied with the power the book had. I didn’t have a really visceral crying reaction, but rather an “I should call my best friend” kind of way.
Agreed. All of the girls were well into their individual summers before I felt like I was hooked. I think she was almost trying to reel us in slowly, though, by revealing more intimate details about the characters throughout, rather than at the beginning.
Friends who you’ve grown apart from: what causes it and what brings you back together? Did reading 3 Willows make you think of friendships you’d lost, or consider getting them back on track?
It did! This is another reason the book moved me in the end. I moved around a lot as a kid so my reasons for losing touch with friends are different but it really made me think about how close you can be to someone for years… and then not. I wish I could rekindle some of those old friendships after reading this book.
I hate to admit it but Facebook has actually helped me do that to some degree. It puts you in touch with a lot of people you might have otherwise never seen again but that isn’t always a bad thing.
1. This is actually something really close to home for me right now. I have a friend who I recently (and for some time) have been super close with, but I’ve been finding myself mad at her so often lately that I’ve been putting distance between us. My original opinion was that if I’m just going to be upset with you all the time, there’s no basis for the friendship anymore. But as I was reading this, it got me thinking about how I may regret that later on. I’ve made a bit of an effort to connect with her since, but I’m still having a hard time with it.
I am glad that I read this now though. I wouldn’t want to look back at a later date and realize I made a mistake. So, it’s been good to get me thinking about it.
This is probably the most significant aspect of 3 Willows for me. It still has me thinking.
It’s funny, the friendships pulling apart and coming back together resonated pretty deeply with me. It coincided with a time when my sister was headed to Utah to visit her best friend from 5th grade, and her Kindergarten best friend is still her closest confidante. My brother, his high school friends are all going to be in his wedding. And then I got to thinking about how towards the end of HS, I started pushing people away for no reason other than the “oh my god I can’t stand this place any more” feeling, and though it’s been a while, I’m thinking more and more about how I should get back in touch, extend an olive branch, etc. The book makes you kind of realize that perhaps it’s not too late? Sure, they weren’t separated for 10 years, but their short separation can definitely be compared.
This book made me think of a friendship that I feel like I’ve worked to maintain but my friend hasn’t. I’m at a place in my life where I don’t have very many close friends that I can call and confide in, share good news with, or just tell them about my day. She used to be that best friend for me, and between her school, boyfriend and other friends — it seems like I don’t rank very high in her list of priorities. The book made me a little more nostalgic and sad about it.
Have you ever had an object that you shared among friends?
Heh. Well as Jody is no doubt gonna say… she made us adorable keychains a few years ago that included our very own version of the Traveling Pants! Of course, I suck and I never could find a FL/US flag that looked good so it’s still lopsided. That said, I love having something that reminds me of Jody with me during the day.
Hallmark used to have these… weird ball/cube things that were meant to share gifts between friends (you send a gift in it and the next time your friend sends you a gift, they return it). I always loved them and thought about buying one to share with my friend Jess but I never did. I kind of regret that because I loved our friendship and maybe I’d have been better at staying in touch if I’d had an object that made me feel closer to her?
2. Oh the keychains.
I don’t actually use mine as my keychain, because I tend to be destructive with those and it would make me too sad if I lost the pieces off it, BUT it hangs beside my bed so it’s one of the first and last things I see every day. It makes me feel good whenever I look at it.
In middle school my girlfriends and I used to share our converse sneakers. We each had a pair in a different colour and we’d always wear two different coloured ones together. You could always spot someone from our group because of it.
Then in high school we would write on each others jean jackets very similarly to what they did with the pants in the first series. We didn’t swap the coats, but we did document our lives on them.
PS – Look at the airport giftshop. That’s where I found the Ottawa ones.
My friends and I used to do the “Be/Fri” / “St/Ends” necklaces. We all made cross-stitch-thread friendship bracelets and anklets
Our biggest “shared” object was a notebook we used to write notes in. One of us would have it in like 3rd period, and then between classes, pass it off. Hopes and dreams were in those books, like how badly I wanted to marry Adam Banks in The Mighty Ducks. LOVED them. My favorite had a picture of Grant Hill on the cover in my basketball fan days. We had like 6 or 7 in one school year. And then split them evenly, so we all had one notebook.
Oh we used to make those friendship bracelets too! Had so many of them. I actually think I kept them all, and somewhere in my trunk of stuff from my childhood there’s a huge pile.
Have you read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books? If so, what overlaps from that series did you enjoying seeing in 3 Willows?
Ok, I think it’s obvious that I HAVE read the SotTP books. Love them in fact. So it’s weird that I didn’t like the initial way it was introduced. I guess because I never saw them as a legend within their own school? I can definitely see their friendship standing out but I didn’t think about everyone knowing about the pants.
Also, it just felt a little cheesy.
But I loved the other ways they were worked into the story. Like Polly watching Tibby’s kid brother and sister and interacting with Brian. I also like that we’re seeing an overlap so the SotTP stories are actually still happening at the same time that this story is happening. Loved Lena making an appearance and Jo not realizing who she was for a moment there, etc. Those were exactly the kinds of things I was expecting so I was very happy that’s what we got (also probably why I was initially bummed that it seemed like we were just going to get a mention of the legend of the Traveling Pants).
Yeah, I agree that I thought the “oh my friends knew all about the legend of the pants” type of intro was a little force-fed, but I loved the way the stories were woven together. It was kind of “daring” to have Lena be the older sister the bad girl. So that she’s introduced to the story, but not in the most positive way, ya know? And Tibby and Brian, and Bridget all getting mention. I’m forgetting off the top of my head, but how was Carmen woven into the story? I think the only overlap I didn’t enjoy was the parallel story of Jo’s open ended not-happy ending with the boy, kind of like Bridget’s more decidedly closed ended not-happy ending with the boy. Otherwise, I’m glad it kind of kept it all in the same “family”.
I think I have to disagree with you guys here. For two reasons:
1 being that the original Sisterhood wouldn’t have seen themselves as a legend in their own school (which is the point of view we heard the story from), but younger girls who would have seen them wearing the pants probably would have. There’s always a group of older, popular girls in high school that the younger girls kind of revere. Especially when you consider than Lena was SO beautiful and Bridget was a soccer star. So I could totally see that, and loved that that was the way they wove it into the new story.
And 2, because the girls and the pants have become such a legend to all of us (the readers), that I felt it was fitting to give the original stories that kind of tribute. Because most of the people reading 3 Willows are probably reading it because of their love of the original Sisterhood, and how powerfully they made us feel.
Oddly enough, it was actually the mention of the Dragon Slayer game in the corner store that really made me nostalgic for the first series. So much happened around that game in the first books that I was giddy at the mention.
It was nice to see (read about) Tibby’s younger siblings grown a little, and the fact that her mother hasn’t changed, and of course how Brian is still there loving her.
I was a little bummed that they made Effie out to be such a bitca though. I didn’t get that vibe from her in the first series.
I liked the way that she wove in the original Sisterhood. It was fun for those of who bonded with those characters, especially seeing them from the younger girls’ POV. I thought it was really interesting when Jo was thinking about Bridget and how she wished she could be like her — meaning, not a care in the world, nothing bad had ever happened to her. Knowing what Bridget has been through lends a poignancy to that moment… we have all kinds of preconceived notions about people, and sometimes we’re way off base.
Yes, I liked that mention about Bridget as well. And that’s exactly what I thought… we shouldn’t always be so quick to think we know someone or their situation. The “perfect” girl really might not have the perfect life.
4. I’ve never done anything so grand as Ama’s mountain, but I have a terrible fear of strangers as well as travelling alone, and have made a few trips recently that I wasn’t going to do because I was scared. It was terrifying, but I really felt good after I did it, and was proud of myself for not missing out on another opportunity.
I was SO happy that Ama didn’t go home, and decided to stay and tackle the mountain. I think it’s a really important message for young girls, and I hope that it encourages some of them to push through their fears. I wish someone would have taught me that when I was younger.
I did a semester in Spain during college, and I was terrified. But following through and going — alone! — really helped me in the end. I became more confident and outgoing, and I knew that I could rely on myself.
I was really happy that Ama didn’t go home, too. It was really interesting to me that she was having such a hard time that she couldn’t recognize look up and around and take in the beauty of her surroundings. I know I’ve felt that way at some points, although maybe not to that degree. It is such an important message, I agree.
The closest I’ve come to climbing a mountain is some light hiking I’ve been doing lately! I certainly don’t think I could do a summer in the wilderness like Ama.
As small as it is, one of the biggest “obstacles” I’ve tackled in the past few months was going to the gym by myself. I overcame the feeling of “Oh everyone’s looking at you” and now just go and rock out, and ignore them. It’s been very, very fulfilling!
Everyone has regrets. Not giving a certain boy my phone number when I had the perfect inroad has been plaguing me!
Almost the entire book is spent with the 3 girls separated and barely in communication with each other. What was it that kept them close despite these things?
Obviously the foundation of their friendship was strong enough to withstand the middle school dramas and growing pains, and distance. They had been such good friends and were so good to and for each other that it was a bond more unbreakable than most. Their friendship was true, which I think Jo has the hardest time coming to terms with.
#6. I think it happens in real life as well, that the crisis situation brings people together/back together. A friend that you haven’t been in touch with in a while, is still someone you care enough about to drop everything and be there for in times of real need.
I also think the Willow tree tidbits that are woven throughout the story are good analogies for their friendship as well. The Willow’s have a strong, intertwined root system, so that even when they’re neglected, they still grow and prosper. Sort of like the roots of the girls friendships.
Regarding #6, I definitely think that there’s this underlying “true” friendship that will bond them for life, regardless of how far apart they are. I know my best friends from elementary school, though we aren’t as close as we were back then, I’ve gone to their weddings, and I spend time with them once or a twice a year, and there’s always a connection, an ease with them, that I don’t have with other people. I think it’s a comfort that keeps them bonded.
[...] 3 Willows by Ann Brashares (April [...]
5. To go back to 5 for a minute, the reason I don’t think that the age really mattered to me is because the story was universal. Everyone has a friendship they lost, everyone has a “mountain to climb”, everyone has a feeling of being lost, or hurt, or blamed for something they didn’t do, etc. I think that’s why, regardless of the fact that they’re almost half my age, I still related to these girls.
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