Long live the Sisterhood!


Turns out I actually had read book 3 before, however I really loved my reread. This series definitely stands the test of time and I enjoyed it as much as I did as a teen. I love the romances and the ways each girl grows throughout the books. It would be amazing to have friends like this someday.

Content Notes:
- Mild Swears
- Mild Sexual Content

So frustrating!!!! I had some issues with Book #2, but really wanted to see what happened next, so I moved on to Book #3. I seriously want to slap everybody in this book. Brashares doesn't seem to realize that in order for characters to mature, they should (hopefully) learn from their mistakes and their experiences. No one has progressed one whit. Carmen is still terribly upset when anybody has something going on in her life that doesn't revolve around her, and proceeds to act like a very small child. Lena and Tibby are moping (*eyeroll* - not very convincingly). And Bee..... actually, Bee was the only character I liked here. Guess what? She's the only character who has grown and changed and isn't acting like an idiot anymore. Go Bee!!! For the rest of them, UGH.
(Will I read Book 4? possibly. Maybe I'll just skim it. I gotta see what Carmen thinks of Williams.... *more eyerolling*)

This and other reviews can be found on The Psychotic Nerd

n  Short and Simple Reviewn
My feelings toward this book are similar to the last book: It is an okay read. I liked parts of the individual stories, I like how the book ends in a motivation/inspirational note, and I love the message of friendship in these books, but I must admit that not a whole lot actually happens in these books. That's not surprising considering that these books detail the summer of teenage girls and sometimes summers can be pretty uneventful. While there are major moments for these girls in each of their summers, if each girl only had their own book, it would be pretty short. I did like this book a little better than the last book because the girls are a little more mature. Carmen was my least favorite last time because she was a bit of a brat. She was still a brat at the beginning of this book, but her story turned out to be one of my favorites because she really seems to be growing as a person. Lena's story was another one I liked. Even though not a whole lot happened in her story, I liked seeing herself see others through her art. Bridget's story was my favorite in the last one but in this book, she was one of my least favorites. She has matured, but her story turned into a romance and I preferred them as friends. As far as Tibby, not much happened in her story. Most of the eventful things in her story happened at the very end where she crosses into another girl's story and she is still making decisions that I don't really agree with.

Overall, I liked this book and there are moments when I feel emotions and I do like the fact that they are growing a little, but this is one of those books where if you stand back a little bit, you realize that it was pretty uneventful. I will be continuing this series. I own the next book and I look forward to seeing these girls the summer after their first semester of college.

Definitely better than the second book. The story just flows so well, which was something I loved about the first one. Lena’s story is increasingly worse though, she’s so boring. Everyone else is great. Bee’s is always so much fun to read and Carmen’s anger and questioning if she’s even a good person is so relatable. I love these girls and I love the perfect boys they talk to lol.

I loved all the quotes at the beginning of each chapter as usual, except the Christopher Columbus one near the end, is he really a man we want to quote here?

One of my favourites lines surprisingly came from Lena’s story. “That was life, as near as Lena could tell. Making everything simple for the first ten years, which in turn made everything way more complicated for the subsequent seventy.”

3.5. Sweet ending. This one really wasn’t about the pants, although I guess it never was all along.

I loved this book!! Such a great story!! Glad that carmen went to the college she wanted too!!

As posted on Zezee with Books.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series is shaping up to be one of my favorites. It’s one of few young-adult contemporary books I like.

Quick overview:

It’s the third summer of the sisterhood and the girls — Carmen, Bee, Lena, Tibby — are preparing to go to college. They’ve all decided on schools that are a few miles from each other and are looking forward to new experiences, but are worried about what they’ll leave behind.

In this installment, Bee is dealing with boy trouble at a soccer camp where she’s a coach, Lena is sneaking to take art classes after her father sees her drawing a naked dude, Carmen is babysitting Lena’s grandma while plotting against her mom (as always) and trying to catch the eye of a cute guy, and Tibby is hiding from her problems and trying to hold onto her old life before moving on to a new one.

My thoughts: (minor spoilers)

These books are quick reads so there’s not much for me to say. I wanted to review both this and the fourth book at the same time, like I did with the first and second, but wasn’t able to borrow and read the fourth in time. This story was another fun read and I’m a little surprised to find that I still enjoy the story. I admire the girls’ friendship and how they are steadfast in their relationship with each other. I wonder if their friendship will remain strong when they go to college because that experience changes people and sometimes alters friendships.

Despite the almost formulaic way the books are written, I’m hooked on them and I like that in each book the girls have problems of their own that they resolve with either physical or emotional support from the others. Though the problems are sometimes highly dramafied and often can be resolved if there was more communication between the girls and their family, I still enjoy reading about it instead of becoming annoyed with the characters.

The exception, of course, is Carmen, who intentionally seeks ways to be mean to her mother and punish her mother for imagined slights. I understand that Carmen takes her mother’s love for granted and is harder on her mother because she expects her mother to love her unconditionally, but that is no excuse for the awful things Carmen does and say to her. And I was a bit annoyed when Carmen made an attempt at self-reflection because that was done because she wanted to be honest with the guy she likes, not because she thought she should be kinder to her mom.

Carmen is not always mean and there are moments when she is very considerate, even to her mom, but when she is mean, she’s really horrible. However, I admire how resourceful she is and great at managing stressful situations.

Though Bee is similar to Carmen, outspoken and resourceful, she’s not vindictive. Bee is my favorite character because she’s full of life, though she does have low moments (I suspect she is manic depressive). I like her development throughout the series and love that she returns to a similar place (soccer camp) in this one so we can see how much she has matured. I also like her way of handling situations. Instead of being vindictive and passive aggressive like some people (Carmen), she prefers to be honest and tackle conflicts directly by talking about the issue. I really appreciated seeing how much she has grown.

Actually, by the end of the story, we see that girls have matured in some way. Lena took charge of the direction of her life, which I admired; both Bee and Carmen matured, but Bee’s growth is more obvious than Carmen’s; and Tibby… I guess Tibby learned to take chances. She spent most of the story worried about her sister and feeling guilty.

Tibby didn’t stand out in this one. She could easily have been written out, but I sympathized with her because she was puzzling out her thoughts on identity and mortality. However Lena’s story stood out to me because it’s centered on art and how art, creating and experiencing it, can be cathartic. Her family’s reactions to what she drew and how they modelled for her almost made me cry (I might have shed a tear).

Same too her grandmother’s story. It was obvious the grandma was homesick and mourning and I felt so bad for her. I certainly believe that how a person feels about where they live have a significant impact on their health and wellness. My parents, who look and act pretty young for their age, are older when in the U.S. Whenever they go to Jamaica, they seem younger and less pressured despite the stress they sometimes feel when returning there. They seem to gain more vitality when they return to their birth country.

Okay, only two more things and then I’m done (and I said I didn’t have much to say. Ha!). The second one might be a major spoiler:

• The girls’ relationship with their mothers seem to be improving a little and I hope that continues.
• The way Lena’s dad reacted to her getting a scholarship for art school didn’t make sense to me. He so adamantly opposed her studying the subject that I expected him to argue when he learned of Lena’s intentions, but we weren’t told if he was informed that Lena was applying for a scholarship. We learn of this at the end when Lena informs him that she got it and he basically just said “good job” but in a “I’m so proud of you” sort of way. I expected some resistance at first.

Overall: ★★★★☆

Another quick, fun read and I still enjoy the characters and their families and seeing how they develop over the summer. I look forward to the next book.

Miałam momentami wrażenie, że zachowanie dziewczyn jest trochę za bardzo patetyczne jak na taką fabułę, ale cały czas bawię się całkiem dobrze i czas na tom czwarty - ostatni.

Libby: Family matters...mostly siblings and other people's families, though. Carmen takes care of Lena's Greek grandmother, Tibby helps deliver Carmen's new little brother (the only one without bio siblings gets a half brother lolz), and Lena does portraits of her whole family to prove to her father that she deserves to go to art school.

Bridget is the only one who doesn't have a huge family moment in this book, but she does go back to soccer camp (finally old enough to be a counselor) and realizes a little bit just how young she had been when she lost her virginity to a 18-19yo counselor at 15. But not fully. She apologies to Eric for being so young and needy (like a boy who's now following her around) and he only mildly takes accountability for his actions....in the form of breaking up with his girlfriend to potentially be with Bee. Gross all around. She's 17 now, but that also now makes him 20-21ish.

Read by Angela Goethals. #booksin23

Reading Rush: Read a book in one spot(my bedroom)

GOD!!! I forgot how much I loved book 3 Girls In Pants. This book just hit me in the feels.

In Girls In Pants we catch up with our girls Lena, Carmen, Tibby and Bridget the summer before college. These girls aren't girls anymore they're adults even if they don't wanna be or act like it.

I think I've come to the conclusion that Lena is unnecessary. I just don't find her all that interesting, which is crazy because as a teenager I loved her but as an adult she's boring y'all. As unlikeable as I find Carmen to be, at least Carmen's interesting. Lena's just blah.

I'm so happy I decided to reread this series during the summer. I feared I wouldn't like them, that maybe I had out grown them but no! They're still just as great as when I originally read them.

Now I'm on to book 4!

Best of the series so far

"A fun and poignant coming-of-age story"???? NO WAY! These girls are immature, brats that never clue in!!! I was much wiser than any one of them by the time I started junior high! Who is really that stupid? Four girls...all together...maybe it's something they were exposed to in their environment, they did grow up together (if you consider them grown up).
Once again, this author did not follow her own facts of the story and once again, her editor didn't catch them. Maybe they both just hoped that only teenagers as dumb as these characters would read the books.
This series was painful. I will NEVER finish a series just to see if it improves again! It gets worse by book four! The author seems to want the tantrum throwing twits to never mature and believe it or not the writing gets worse!! I think she seemed tired of the books or characters or life in general was giving her a hard time, she seemed to not be able to actually pull the story together. One good thing though, the disgustingly filthy pants are rarely mentioned, in comparison to the first three books!