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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Sep 2001, 304 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2003, 203 pages
A fresh, lively look at the friendship of four teenagers facing the possibility of growing apart. Poignant, funny, and real, this story will remind you of all the best parts of being best friends.
Carmen got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn’t look all that great: they were worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them. But Tibby says they’re great. She'd love to have them. Lena and Bridget also think they’re fabulous. Lena decides that they should all try them on. Whoever they fit best will get them. Nobody knows why, but the pants fit everyone perfectly. Even Carmen (who never thinks she looks good in anything) thinks she looks good in the pants. Over a few bags of cheese puffs, they decide to form a sisterhood and take the vow of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants . . . the next morning, they say good-bye. And then the journey of the pants --- and the most memorable summer of their lives --- begins.
"Can you close that suitcase?" Tibby asked Carmen.
"It's making me sick."
Carmen glanced at the structured canvas bag splayed wantonly in the middle of her bed. Suddenly she wished she had all-new underwear. Her best satin pair was sprouting tiny ropes of elastic from the waistband.
"It's making me sick," Lena said. "I haven't started packing. My flight's at seven."
Carmen flopped the top of the suitcase down on the carpeted floor. She was working on removing navy-blue polish from her toenails.
"Lena, could you not say that word anymore?" Tibby asked, wilting a little on the edge of Carmen's bed. "It's making me sick."
"Which word?" Bridget asked. "Packing? Flight? Seven?"
Tibby considered. "All of them."
"Oh, Tibs," Carmen said, grabbing Tibby's foot from where she sat. "It's gonna be okay."
Tibby took her foot back. "It's gonna be okay for you. You're going away. You're going to eat barbecue all the time and light firecrackers and everything.
Tibby had nonsensical ideas ...
Marjorie Bowman, Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Memphis, TN
A fresh, lively look at the friendship of four teenagers facing one inevitable part of growing up the possibility of growing apart. Poignant, funny, and real, this story -- along with the letters the friends write to each other over the summer -- will remind you of all the best parts of being best friends.
If you liked The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants, try these:
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The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
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