19 out of 19 people found this review helpful.
I Want to Be a Member of the Sisterhood
Date of Review: Nov 14, 2001
The Bottom Line: If you are a 13 year old girl, this book is perfect. If not, read it anyway.
To ensure that their friendship will flourish over a long summer apart, four friends start a tradition that possibly helps them survive the summer without their closest companions. Through letters and narratives, these girls take readers through one crazy summer of travel, camp, work, and new beginnings. Carmen, Tibby, Bridget, and Lena are four young women on their way to their junior year in high school and unlike every summer before this one, they will spend this summer apart.
Carmen spots the Pants at a thrift store for a grand total of $3.49 (with tax). She makes the purchase without intending to wear the Pants until one day Tibby, Bridget, and Lena come over and see them. All four girls, with four very different body types try on the Pants and look fabulous. ?How can that be you ask?? These Pants are magical. After a ceremony in the place where the girl?s friendship began, the Sisterhood is born. The girls decide that each will have the Pants for one week, documenting the important things that occur while they are wearing the Pants and then pass them on to the next person who will do the same. They come up with a list of rules that the wearer of the Pants must follow.
1. You must never wash the Pants.
2. You must never double-cuff the Pants. There will never be a time when this will not be tacky.
3. You must never say the word ?phat? while wearing the Pants. You must also never think ?I am fat? while wearing the Pants.
4. You must never let a boy take off the Pants (although you may take them off yourself in his presence).
5. You must not pick your nose while wearing the Pants. You may, however, scratch causally at your nostril while really kind of picking.
6. Upon our reunion, you must follow the proper procedures for documenting you r time in the Pants.
7. You must write to your Sisters throughout the summer, no matter how much fun you are having without them.
8. You must pass the Pants along to your Sisters according to the specification set down by the Sisterhood. Failure to comply will result in a sever spanking upon our reunion.
9. You must not wear the Pants with a tucked-in shirt and belt (See rule #2)
10. Remember: Pants=love. Love your pals. Love your self.
Lena, on her way to Greece to spend the summer with her grandparents gets the pants first. She has some misadventures in the pants, resulting with a bloodstain on them. Carmen can?t wait for her summer in South Carolina to start with her dad (her parents are divorced) but is surprised when he has a new house, a new fiancee (with two kids), and a new life that doesn?t seem to have room for her. Tibby is stuck at home working at Wallmans, a drugstore. She assumes that she will have the worst summer ever but a new friend turns that around and teaches her that sometimes you have to enjoy the simple things in life. Bridget, an amazing athlete goes to Baja California for soccer camp where a crush on a coach almost gets her and him into a lot of trouble.
Throughout the book, the pants somehow become more than just pants. They are like the fifth friend in the Sisterhood, comforting the four girls as they learn some of life?s very important lessons. A summer apart makes four friends closer then ever, none of which would be possible without the Pants.
Ann Brashares, the author of, ?The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? said that the topic of the book came about in an unusual way. ?I was working as an editor at the time, chatting in the office with a colleague and friend who told me about a summer when she and some girl friends shared a pair of pants. She told me the pants had sadly been lost in Borneo. My mind was immediately filled with all sorts of wonderful possibilities. I think pants have unique qualities, especially in a woman?s life. Whatever bodily insecurities we have, we seem to take out on our pants. In high school, my friends would have their skinny pants and their fat pants. I like pants that allow women not to judge their bodies. The Traveling Pants are the kind of pants that always love you. They fit my characters? bodies in a non-restrictive way.?
When speaking of her book, Brashares says, ?I hope they'll (teens) enjoy it and take pleasure away. I want it to be the kind of book that will stick with them a bit, the way books I liked when I was that age stuck with me. If there's a message, I guess it's just this: love yourself and your friends unconditionally.?
Ann Brashares grew up in Maryland with three brothers. She went to Barnard College where she studied Philosophy. After college, Ann took a year off and worked as an editor. She now lives in New York with her husband, two sons and newborn daughter (an honorary member of the sisterhood).
