This year, four best friends have
to spend their summer apart after spending nearly every previous summer
together. Just before they have to go
their separate ways, they find a pair of pants that makes them all look
great. They vow to pass the pants on
from one friend to the next over the summer, and so the pants become the shared
element in their collective stories.

Carmen narrates the prologue and
epilogue of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Her friends are Lena, Tibby and
Bridget. They live in Washington DC and
have just finished tenth grade. They
are starting to become independent, and are forming their own identities. Bad-tempered Carmen’s parents are divorced,
and she lives with her Puerto Rican mother. 
Bridget’s mother died several years ago. Beautiful Lena and her younger sister Effy go around together
most of the time. Tibby’s mother is
politically radical, but Tibby isn’t so sure she wants to live such an ethical
life.

This novel for “young adults” is
aimed at teenaged girls, although it could appeal to others. Even I quite enjoyed it, and I am certainly
very far from the target audience, although adult and sophisticated teenaged
readers may well find the plot a little too obvious in its lessons of
youth. Carmen spends the summer with
her father and his new family, and has a great deal of difficulty adjusting. Bridget has a crush on a boy she meets at
soccer camp, and that leads to trouble. 
Lena has to deal with the culture of her Greek relatives when she has to
spend the summer with them. Tibby stays home working in a drug store, planning
to make her own documentary of the summer, and reluctantly acquires a young
friend who keeps on following her around; she discovers her friend has a
terminal illness.

The stories of the four girls are
interwoven adding to the complexity of the plot, and although Angela Goethals
reads the
unabridged audiobook well, it can be a little hard to follow the twists
and turns unless one is paying careful attention. They are all likable characters, and the experiences they go
through are the kind that many teenagers will also have. The use of language in this novel is
straightforward, and basically undemanding for young adults. All the girls are healthy and untroubled,
even if they have some vulnerabilities. 
Probably the greatest virtue of the book is its attitude of acceptance
towards what life throws at these girls and its sense of assurance that they
can cope.

Link:
RealAudio excerpt from this book.

©
2002 Christian Perring. First Serial Rights.

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College,
Long Island. He is editor of Metapsychology Online Review. His main
research is on philosophical issues in psychiatry. He is especially interested
in exploring how philosophers can play a greater role in public life, and he is
keen to help foster communication between philosophers, mental health
professionals, and the general public.

Categories: Fiction