The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares: This is not your typical YA after-school special kind of novel; this is four typical YA after-school specials in one. Four friends who usually spend the summer together (and who have pretty much nothing in common except their moms did aerobics together while pregnant) spend their first summer apart. Lena goes to Greece to visit/meet her grandparents where she has boy issues; Bridget goes to soccer camp where she has boy issues; Carmen goes to South Carolina where she has daddy issues; and Tibby stays home where she befriends a terminally ill kid. Kind of separately and kind of together, they all learn valuable (and predictable) lessons about life and love, while passing around a pair of “magical” jeans. These jeans are only magical in the way they fit all four of these girls so well despite being different sizes and shapes. The pants themselves don’t appear to do anything in particular. None of the girls were especially distinctive, and I kept getting Carmen and Tibby mixed up in particular. This is not to say this was a bad or even necessarily boring book – there were plenty of funny moments. It just wasn’t very memorable. Probably a good beach read for a teenager.
Also posted on BookCrossing.