Summer Reading

I just finished reading Summer Sisters for the eighth time. It has been one of my favorites for nearly fifteen years, and is the only non-children's book I have read with such regularity. The first time I read it I was 15, and I read it every summer for the next seven years. I am on my fourth copy because I love it so much that I am constantly lending it out and forgetting to whom I loaned it. It is a great story about the power of friendship, the importance of the decisions we make throughout our lives, and the way we impact the lives of others. I wasn't expecting anything different this time through, but after the 7 years that passed since my last reading, I found myself not only seeing the girls' perspective, but identifying more with the adult figures in the story. That was an interesting shift in my experience of the book, and it makes me wonder how it will change for me again in another seven years. I am sure some things will remain the same, though--I will only be able to read it during the summer, and I will still cry at the end.