The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Ann Brashares, 1998
Young adult Contemporary fictionRomance
Four friends navigate pivotal summer changes, secret friendships, and the shared mystery of a simple pair of denim pants. A plain, warm voice follows four friends through a summer of shifting identities, with tenderness and nostalgia more than drama.
Feels like tenderness, nostalgia and joy. About friendship, identity and family.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy quiet YA about four friends whose summers pull them in different directions. The story splits its time among four separate summer plots, so if you want one continuous storyline, it may feel piecemeal.
Why read it
Read it for a grounded look at how friendships bend across a summer apart, held together by one ordinary pair of jeans.
A page from the book
Look at how texture and fabric become extensions of physical grace.
The pants clung to Lena’s waist and followed the line of her hips. They held close to the shape of her thighs and fell exactly to the tops of her feet. When she took two steps forward, they appeared to hug each of her muscles as they shifted and moved. Carmen gazed in wonder at how different was their effect from Lena’s bland uniform of J. Crew khakis. Ann Brashares.Brashares often explores the complex intimacy of female friendships and the subtle ways shared objects can act as conduits for deep emotional connection.
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy quiet YA about four friends whose summers pull them in different directions. The story splits its time among four separate summer plots, so if you want one continuous storyline, it may feel piecemeal.
- What is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants like?
- A plain, warm voice follows four friends through a summer of shifting identities, with tenderness and nostalgia more than drama. Feels like tenderness, nostalgia and joy. About friendship, identity and family.
- What should I read after The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants?
- If you liked The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, try Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell), The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton) and Because of Winn-Dixie (Kate DiCamillo).
A taste of the feed
How much of yourself you edit before pressing send.
Cath probably should have texted Abel by now, just to tell him that she’d made it—but she wanted to wait until she felt more breezy and nonchalant. You can’t take back texts. If you come off all moody and melancholy in a text, it just sits there in your phone, reminding you of what a drag you are.
Fangirl · Rainbow Rowell
Grief has a shape, and your tongue keeps finding it.
Thinking about her was the same as the hole you keep on feeling with your tongue after you lose a tooth. Time after time, my mind kept going to that empty spot, the spot where I felt like she should be.
Because of Winn-Dixie · Kate DiCamillo
The prairie before anyone has claimed it, and the strange relief of being no one.
There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.
Little House on the Prairie · Laura Ingalls Wilder
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