Girls in Pants by Ann Brashares

September 3rd, 2008 at 9:10am |

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Audience: Young Adult

Rating: B+

Synopsis: It’s the girls’ last summer before college. They’re especially protective of these last months together before they go their separate ways, but of course they’re not all staying home for the summer. Bridget’s off to a new soccer camp where she’ll be reunited with an old flame, while the others are spending most of the summer close to home – but even in Bethesda, trouble and adventure finds the pants-wearers.

Chatter:

(Spoiler Alerts! )

I really like that these books go beyond high school. I can’t think of many books that do; most stop at senior year or graduation. It’s unusual and rewarding to read beyond that point.

Lena – Even though she spends most of this book not-thinking about Kostos, Lena’s story in this book is more about her finding herself. I’m glad that Lena has to struggle for her art, it makes her more interesting and gives her more depth as a character. I also think she’ll appreciate college so much more because it’s something she had to earn instead of it just being handed to her. I’m still not really sure what part Paul played in the story – maybe he’ll be figured out in the fourth book.

Bridget… and Eric (again!). I’m glad that Eric was given a chance to redeem himself. I’m also glad that they spent the whole summer as friends and getting to know each other before it became more. Eric really proved himself to me when he spent time taking care of Bridget instead of just feeding off her energy. But… I was still bothered by the fact that he just took off without telling Bridget why and that he waited for her to come to him before he clarified his feelings. I’m glad that Bee called him on this: “Do you let people get close just so you can disappoint them?” But I’m even gladder that he was able to refute this with an explanation.

Carmen continues to search for who she really is. I think college is going to be rough for her. She draws so much of her identity from her friends and doesn’t seem to realize that she is the sum of all aspects of her personality. It’s interesting that some times she takes such big risks, but other times she seems afraid of herself and her emotions.

Tibby’s struggle with the blame for Katherine’s accident was realistic. Based on her character from other books, Tibby would blame herself and also assume that if she hadn’t been so happy with Brian, then this wouldn’t have happened.

One book left – I can’t wait to see how Brashares leaves the characters!