The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (by Ann Brashares)

In anticipation of the upcoming movie of the same title, with Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn, I read all three books in this series over the past month or so. Yes, I know that I'm sort of too old to be still be interested in teen books and movies, but it's still my favorite kind of "light" entertainment because it's so fluffy and requires such little concentration.

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood and Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood are so similar to the first book that there's really no point in reviewing them all separately. This is classic teen girl stuff: it's sappy. It's cliched. At points it's rather annoying. But it's cute enough to be somewhat comforting. It kind of reminds me of the movie Now and Then because it's about four best girlfriends who all fit into different personality categories. The difference is that the Sisterhood books are set in the present and the girls are older, but the same feel is definitely there.

The four girls are: Tibby, the artsy chick with former hippie parents and much younger siblings; Lena, the quiet and beautiful Greek girl; Carmen, the outgoing girl with divorced parent issues; and Bridget (Bee), the spontaneous soccer jock. My favorite was Tibby, partly because her storylines were more unconventional. Lena was pretty boring, Carmen was too predictable, and Bee I just couldn't relate to. (This only reinforces the fact that I don't get along with most girls very well.)

There isn't really much else to say...the premise of the books is a bit odd though, now that I think about it. Magical jeans that perfectly fit 4 girls of different heights and sizes? What the heck? They decide to rotate the pants among eachother during each summer, which is, of course, only something that silly teenage girls would do. In the first book, the girls are in different parts of the world (Greece, Mexico, Maryland, and South Carolina), and the first thing I thought about was about how much postage that was, and how much time the pants spent in the mail. Haha.

Anyway, I have to say that I did enjoy reading the books. I haven't read any teen lit in awhile, and I kind of miss all those teen movies from the nineties like 10 Things I Hate About You and Bring it On and She's All That so I'm looking forward to seeing the movie too.