Book VS. Movie "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"

Brashares, A. (2001). Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. New York: Random House.

Brashares' novel was created into a film and released in 2005. I remember watching the movie a a sophomore in college, but I hadn't read the book yet. The story is centered upon the close friendship of 4 high school girls, Lena, Tibby, Bridget, and Carmen. The four girls have very different personalities, but they all connect together to make a support system for one another. We learn about the adventures and problems that occur over the course of their sophomore summer. The girls find that the summer takes them on four different paths. Lena is spending the summer with some family in Greece, Bridget goes across the country for a soccer camp, Carmen goes to South Carolina to visit her dad, and Tibby remains at home in Maryland to work at a local store. Before departing on their distinct journeys for the summer, the girls go shopping at a thrift shop. They discover a "magical" pair of jeans that fits each of their different body sizes. The friends make a pact to pass the jeans to one another during the summer. The girls also create a series of 10 rules that should be followed while wearing the jeans. Two of the rules were to never wash the pants and you must not tuck in your shirt and wear a belt with the pants.

The movie follows the books pretty well, with the exception of the Lena's character. The movie fails to include Lena's sister, Effie. In the novel, Effie was the complete opposite of Lena. The book emphasized that Effie wasn't as beautiful as Lena and had a more carefree personality than her sister. I found this sort of strange to leave Effie out of the movie entirely. The film also portrays Lena's summer fling (while she is in Greece visiting family) with Kostos a little differently than the book did. There is also an age difference in the book and movie. In the novel the girls are 15 years old and they are a couple months away from being 17 in the movie. Unlike the movie, the book also portrays Lena as being the oldest.

I would recommend the book and movie. This is probably more suitable for older readers, around 13 and above. The storyline of summer romance, friendship, family difficulties, and coping with hard situations would probably appeal most to teenage girls. Although the story follows the lives of four different girls, it is still easy to keep stay on track with the information for each girl. Some books confuse the reader by floating back and forth to different lives, but this one can be easily followed.

My favorite part of the story was Tibby's relationship with a young girl named Bailey. Of course I wasn't happy with Bailey's condition (leukemia), but I liked how Tibby realized how important Bailey actually was. At first, Tibby tries to ignore Bailey because she gets in Tibby's way. Tibby gradually starts to realize that even though Bailey is a kid, she still has insights worth listening to. I loved watching the impact that Bailey made upon Tibby!