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Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, reviewed by Melissa J.

In her first novel, Ann Brashares writes an extraordinary story about four sophomore girls experiencing many conflicts and detours in their lives as they spend their first summer apart. In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, the four teenage girls, Carmen, Bridget, Lena, and Tibby each have certain conflicts that they have to overcome. In this novel filled with teenage romance, it gives you the curiosity about what will happen next making, it extremely hard to put the book down.

Carmen accompanied Lena with her family one day while shopping. Effie, Lena’s sister, had to find a dress for the sophomore prom, although since she liked to be different, they went to the local thrift store. While browsing the store to see what they had, Carmen discovered a pair of nicely folded blue jeans. Carmen and her three friends decide to try the jeans on while spending their last days together before the summer begins. The pants fit each four girls, who had extremely different bodies, magnificently. They then made a pact to send around the pants all summer long while making amazing memories in them.

As you make your way into the book, you can imagine each of the scenes happening as if you were really there experiencing each event with the characters. Not only is this book entertaining to read, but also shows many problems that almost every teenager has to overcome at least once in their life, for example, boy problems or the loss of somebody that is important to you. Following each of the problems and their resolutions, it also shows the value of true friendship.
Some readers might find this book a little slow at times. Some of the situations are dragged on throughout the entire novel. Although in the end every problem ties together leading to an overall happy ending, some readers like their books straight to the point instead of holding each conflict off until the end when eventually they find a resolution.

Overall, this book deserves four stars. From a teenager’s perspective, after getting a few chapters into the book, it made it impossible to put down. Each of the main characters had some sort of problem, although in the end, even if there were some detours in the road, each girl made it to the end. Life can be rocky at some times, but each girl learned an immensely imperative lesson. This is that life is what you make it and that you shouldn’t take advantage of anything in your life, especially because you might not always have it.