Ann Brashares - Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Today I finished reading "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" by Ann Brashares, which is probably one of the best books I've read in a long time.

This book is about four girls who have been friends since before they were born (really!). The four girls are going to be apart for the first summer ever and they're all worried about being "friendless." They decide to share a pair of "magic" pants between the four of them to help keep their friendship intact. This book shares the unique stories of each of the four girls' summer activities, problems, and experiences.

I enjoyed this book because I can relate to almost everything that happens in the book. Topics range from a first love to the death of a friend to the remarriage of a family member, as well as many other things. Brashares makes this novel unique by telling a few pages worth of each girl's activities, separating each incident with a short letter from one girl to another. The letters are how the girls communicated their summer lives with each other while they were apart. They also send the pants back and forth a few times between the four of them, sending with the pants their own experiences they had while wearing them, often along with some advice. Whenever one of the girls' segments ended, I was disappointed that it didn't continue, but excited to move on to the next girl. Each girl's story was very interesting and unique, and can be compared to incidents that we all experience in our own lives. One of the rules of the sisterhood of the traveling pants was that the girls had to write about experiences they had while wearing the pants inside the legs of the pants when they all were reunited. When the girls get back together at the end of the summer they have all changed but their friendship has definitely survived.

The only thing I really found wrong with this book was that a few of the things that happened seemed unrealistic. For example, one of the girls ends up running away from one parent's house to go back to the other parent. In reality, I don't think parents would react the way they did in the book.

I enjoyed this book immensely and I think this is a fantastic first novel from the author. I feel this is a book many people should read because the characters are so well developed that it gives the reader a good idea of how different even the best of friends can be, as well as how different kinds of people deal with different things. This book has made me realize the true value of having "girlfriends," and it left me craving a sisterhood and magic pants of my own. I cannot wait to read the sequel, "The Second Summer of the Sisterhood."