The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

August 25th, 2008 at 9:35am |

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Audience: Young Adult

Rating: A-

Synopsis:

Told from four different perspectives, the 15-year-old narrators of this book are about to experience their first summer apart. Determined not to let distance separate them or detract from their bond, the four girls communicate by sharing a pair of very special jeans. Although they may not be together, each of the girls is stretched during the summer in a way that makes her realize how important it is to have friends to lean on.

Chatter:

(Spoiler Alerts! ) I had read this book awhile ago, but I recently read it again. This book isn’t good because of the actual, magical pants – it’s good despite them. The pants always annoyed me. A magical shirt or necklace I would buy into. But there’s no such thing as pants that would fit them all. But as I said above, despite the gimmicky pants, I really like this book.

The characters are great! My favorites are Lena and Bridget. I can relate to Lena’s introspection and I love and fear Bee’s irrepressibility. I fear for Bee more than the other characters because she has no limits and doesn’t seem to understand when she’s being self-destructive. Carmen’s temper annoys me sometimes, and Tibby’s sarcasm wears thin. But I do like them all.

Lena and Kostos… how could she have fallen in love with him? Attraction, sure? But love? She barely saw him the whole time she was in Greece. She avoided him in the beginning and then he avoided her… When was there any chance for her to fall for him ? – not the stories of his tragic past or feel guilty about the problems she caused.

Bridget… and Eric. She is certainly a force of nature, but I was really disturbed by how out of control Eric let things get – and how quickly. He is her camp counselor after all and she’s just 15 (I know she told him she was 16, but does that really make a big difference when he’s a college sophomore?) I wonder if Eric will reappear in the other books… I’d be interested in seeing more of him because I want him to be a good guy, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.

Carmen – yikes! What kind of psycho family are Lydia and Krista? It really bothered me that she would make comments about being unhappy and they’d ignore her. Paul? He could end up being the one to salvage the whole family.

Tibby – what kind of name is Tibby? What’s it short for? I thought Tibby was a little boring and annoying, but I liked Bailey and I think Bailey gave Tibby a humanity that she would have been insufferable without.

I’m looking forward to reading the second book and seeing how the girls have changed over the course of the year and whether Lena and Kostos last or if Bridget pulls herself back together.