Sonderbooks Book Review of Girls in Pants

Reviewed February 23, 2005.
Delacorte Press, New York, 2005. 338 pages.
Available at Sembach Library (JF BRA).
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2005 (#1, Young Adult Contemporary Novels)

Here’s the third book about the four best friends of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Once again, the book simply tells the story of their summer. Once again, the girls take turns wearing the Traveling Pants and end up wearing the Pants at turning points of their lives.

This is the last summer before Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bee separate and go to four different colleges. They’re on the cusp of adulthood. Big decisions and big events face them.

I like these books because they are about true friendship—between people who are very different, but who truly love one another. I like the way Ann Brashares weaves their stories together and shows us the tough issues each girl is facing. I like the way the girls know their friends and help each other in crises.

This summer, the girls are learning lessons about love, whether familial love for a grumpy grandmother or an overly adventurous little sister, or romantic love and how that fits in with friendship. This book resonates beyond simple events in the lives of some teenagers.

Reviews of other books by Ann Brashares:
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

******Girls in Pants*

The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

by Ann Brashares