SUMMER SISTERS

An intimate, confidential tone is essential to Judy Blume's story of two girls whose summers together form an unshakable bond even though their lives both begin and end so differently. Narrator Gish tells the story in a believable way; her youthful voice lightly glides through conversations between Vix and Caitlin and confides the narrative of their idyllic Martha's Vineyard summers, their adolescent crushes and more serious romances. Gish accentuates the intimate sense of a friend telling the listener the story. However, throughout the book, "voices" of different characters--brothers, stepmother, roommates, boyfriends--view the same events that the girls have just described. This structure gets muddled on audio because Gish doesn't distinguish the characters with enough vocal color. A modest success, but, overall, the brevity seems to make the summer all too short. R.F.W. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 98]