An Awe-Inspiring Book Review of The Sisterhood...of the Traveling Pants

Angelina Hendley                                                

Mr. Coates

Bestsellers

1 March 2011

Hot reads, for girls!

            It’s natural to enjoy happy, easy-reads that portray the kind of person you are in a positive light. That’s probably why this “chic-lit” is such a popular story among younger teenage girls. Ann Brashares created the kind of characters that are strong, bold and independent high school girls. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. What are the traveling pants? They are the magical element of the story that symbolize the unbreakable connection between four best friends. The story just breathes summer. It makes the reader long for the beaches, and then want to be in Greece the next second because all of their adventures seem exciting. It’s like this snapshot of an incredible summer that is captured in these pages, and while reading letters about the girls adventures and thoughts, you become part of the Sisterhood. This is the perfect kind of genre to get young girls excited to read more. It has more positive and easy-to-understand language and makes typical events or people seem remarkable.

            The characterization in The Help and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was phenomenal. I cringed when I read about Hilly eating that pie from Minny, and I felt Lena’s shame and embarrassment when she admitted her feelings to Kostos. The characters in their interactions with one another in each book helped me see the bigger picture that the authors were trying to show. The Help itself had a way deeper storyline and its writing style was very unique since it had the dialect of the way the black maids spoke in the South. I really liked the fact that both books had multiple different points of view. It was more meaningful for the reader because he or she could understand what was happening to different people at the same time. So what did I really get from each book? While I observed the female characters on their personal journeys, I deciphered the meaning of all these independent characters doing extraordinary things and taking painstaking measures to achieve their goals. It’s as if they’re calling out to their fellow audience to listen to their stories and setting an example of how powerful a woman really is. This is a major theme in The Help. Not only are blacks crave more power and equal rights, black woman are stuck in a cycle and finally get the chance to claw their way through white prejudice and show the world what Jackson, Mississippi is really like. The sisters in The Sisterhood of the Traveling pants also make a powerful impact on their own lives and the people’s around them. They aspire to be seen and their voices heard. They also demand the kind of attention from friends and strangers alike that most teens probably don’t get. The philosophy? Why wait for others to fix problems when you could do it yourself . . . ?   Granted, they didn’t always do what was right, but at least they followed their heart and let people know what they were feeling. When Carmen was angry, she threw a rock at her Dad’s new family’s house and broke a window while they were eating dinner. I love the way the voices of all the characters are so honest all the time. “I am mad at my dad. I am *mad* at my dad. Why is that so hard for me to see, Tibby? I have no problem being mad at you.” Trusting Carmen is so easy because she is a more gushy type of narrator who acts out impulsively on her feelings and shares everything, unlike the other girls. While the writing of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is just “average,” it’s really the voices of the girls that wins the reader over. It’s the friendship, love and courage in everything they do and feel that that celebrates being a strong, beautiful girl living her own life.  “Wear them. They'll make you brave.” And while these teenage girls have so much faith in a pair of magical pants that fits them all perfectly, the maids from The Help share stories and put their faith in a book that will change their lives forever.

             If I had to rate The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in relation to other books of its type, I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. In comparison to all the great books in the world? Maybe a 2.5 . . . It is fun and entertaining and free and lively and warm, but on a level that is trumped by other great books of this age. And I’m not referring to Nicholas Sparks or Sarah Desson, I mean well-written books that have survived time and have artistic value. They are more complex, without a doubt, and the time invested into a story like Pride and Prejudice will definitely be more fruitful than time invested into something like The Last Song or Dear John. Blaghh. Yes, to a young person, this book is perfect level and depth-wise. For someone who fancies deeper, more artistic stories, not so much.

(Movie adaptation trumps the book!!!!) watch trailerJ but be warned…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHULbEtbUTo