Turns out not all Sisterhood summers can be exciting ones. Carmen nannies in Bethesda, Lena works retail, Bee cleans out an attic, and Tibby goes to summer camp. Everyone--and I mean, EVERYONE--is mean to their mom.

Hilarious Highlights:
+ The number of times Wisconsin Avenue is mentioned.
+ How chill everyone is about Brian sleeping on the floor of Tibby's dorm room all summer.
+ Bridgette choosing "Gilda" as her alias and no one saying, "1897 called, they want their Eastern European housekeeper back."
+ That one time Lena and Costco made out naked on the LAWN BY THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL. HAHAHAHAHA

This one annoyed me so much! All the girls, Carmen especially, were a bunch of selfish, egotistical, hypocritical brats! It came around at the end, but Carmen was still thinking things that just made her look unchanged with how her story was. The other girls did, but Carmen, on the outside, yes, gas changed, but not the inside. She was doing this stuff for show. Not like she really wanted to or meant it.

3.5 stars. It was nice to be back with these girls again, and to see more of their story. I also really appreciated the fact that each of the girls is going through something that feels personally difficult for each of them; it’s always interesting to see how characters react to hard or new or emotional things.

These books are so wonderful. This one took me by surprise, I didn't expect so much mother-daughter love and so many really heartbreaking moments. I love this series.

September 2022 reread, paperback.
As before, enjoyed this one almost as much as book one, because you're already established with the girls and their personalities.

July 2013 reread, audiobook.
August 2011 reread.

May 2008
I almost liked this volume more than the first story, as the characters have all been established and we are able to watch them grow and deal with their mothers (in one way or another). My heart breaks for Lena and heals for Bridget.

Read it first when I was in Middle School and reread it now, I understand why this is the least I love among the series. Because it's all sad stories. And Bee's not with Eric. This is the only volume sans Eric. Eric is my fav lad from the series (Leo comes second). I never liked Kostos and Carmen's boy is never impressive and Brian is too geeky.

But now I see Brian is special because he's the closest we could find in real life. Ain't no prince charming nor a knight in shining armor, you boys simply be there and be real.

Ha ha.

I chose to read this book because in my English class, we are supposed to read a specific genre of a choice book each month. This month the genre was realistic fiction. Last summer, for summer reading I chose to read the first book in this series, The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants. This book, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, is the second. I enjoyed the first one so much that soon after I finished reading it, I watched the movie which made me fall more in love with the stories. So, I decided I wanted to read the whole series!

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood tells the story of the girls’ second summer with the pants. For those of you who have never read the books or watched the movies, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Basically, these four best friends, Carmen, Bridget, Lena, and Tibby find these “magical” pair of jeans that fit them all perfectly and give them good luck. They all go their separate ways once the summer begins and they send the pants around to all of them. They also have specific rules they need to follow when it is their turn, such as that they are never allowed to wash them. The second summer is a lot different than the first for all of the girls. In this book, Carmen’s story mainly focuses on the relationship between her and her mom who gets a new boyfriend. The new man in her mother’s life changes the way they used to be and this makes Carmen full of angry and sad emotions. In Bridget’s story, she is faced with internal struggles after she decides to quit soccer, which was her whole life, for mental health issues. She says, “‘I think about the person I used to be, and she seems so far away. She walked fast, I walk slow. She stayed up late and got up early, I sleep. I feel like if she gets any farther away, I won’t be connected to her at all anymore” (12). To try and help her get back on track, she leaves home to go to her grandmother, Greta’s house undercover as a housecleaner to get to know her more. When Bridget was younger her mother died and she pretty much lost connection with her grandmother. Her story focuses on her finding herself again while also learning more about her mother's life while she cleans Greta’s attack filled with her mom’s old things. Lena’s story is also about internal struggles. Last year she went to Greece to visit her grandparents and ended up meeting the love of her life, Kostos. This summer, she had lost contact with Kostos because of the long distance and had become very depressed. That was until a very big event happens that I do not want to spoil for anyone who plans on reading the story that sees this. After this event, Lena is faced with more questions and struggles. Lastly, Tibby’s story is about her going off to a film school during the summer and trying to make new friends while keeping her other best friend Brian after the loss of her other best friend Bailey. Also, like Carmen, she struggles to work on her relationship with her mother, who she always feels is too busy with her baby siblings to pay any attention to her.

I really, really like almost everything about this book. I liked how it was set in one specific time frame, but told so many different stories. It showed that there are a lot of different things that are happening around you at the same time you are doing something else. It showed different types of families and problems that occur within. I also liked that many of the problems and feelings that the characters had were relatable. Also, while there were many different stories going on, I was intrigued by all of them and just kept wanting to find out what was going to happen next. It would stop right after a huge event or cliffhanger and move back on to the next person’s story. I also liked how the characters showed signs of growth as time passes. For example (kind of SPOILER!!!), when Tibby first goes to the film school, she makes friends with people named Maura and Alex who are not very nice and are mean to Tibby’s best friend Brian and their RA, Vanessa. At first, Tibby doesn’t do anything about it because she is trying so hard to fit in that she even makes a mean film about her mother. Towards the end, Tibby realizes that they are just jerks and finally stands up for what she knows is right. She says, “‘You know that guy Brian?... He’s one of my best friends in the world… And you know what else?… That stupid movie I made was awful. It was mean and shallow and stupid… And you know what else?... Vanessa the RA is more of an artist than Maura or you or I will ever be…’” (225-226). One more thing I really liked was how attached the author made me to some of the characters. Lena’s was my favorite because it made me very emotional at some points. For example (SPOILER, again), when Kostos comes to visit, we find out that he is still very much in love with Lena and hasn’t moved on which was something that Lena was struggling with very much. During this very dramatic scene Kostos says, “‘Don’t you know anything?’... Lena’s cheeks turned warm. There was a sob in her throat… ‘Lena please don’t be sad. Don’t ever be sad because you think I don’t love you… I never stopped… Don’t you know that?...’” (238-239).

There was really only one thing that I didn’t like about the book. This was the way it was set up. I know there weren’t that many other ways they could have done it, but I think the structure should have been different. There were chapters, but they weren’t very organized. I didn’t like how it switched from one person’s story to the next, in the following paragraph. I often got confused as to whose story was whose and what was going on. If I were to have written this book, I would have made it a new chapter every time the story switched from girl to girl. I think that would have made it a little easier to read in my opinion.

Re-Read
The only thing I had remembered from this one was that it was my least favorite of the series. This reread reminded me why. While the first one was fresh and relatable this one felt super stale. The girls showed more growth and maturity in book 1 than they do in this follow-up. It's been a year, this is the second summer with the pants, and the girls are somehow more immature and juvenile.

Carmen struggling with her dad remarrying and rebuilding his life without telling her was a great journey to follow. In here she's sad her mother is starting to date someone. Like, we already went through this? And Carmen should be much more chill in this situation?

Bridget coped with her Mother's loss in an unhealthy way in book 1 and realized a lot about her self and came to terms with that loss; however here, she decides to dye her hair and find her grandmother and not tell her who she is. For whatever reason. Also she starts playing soccer again.

Tibby didn't learn anything from Bailey passing away apparently and had a regression. She suddenly changes how she talks and acts to impress these two posers which was something she hated in the first book. She was always the one on her own and now she's a follower? So weird.

And then Lena is just sad about Kostos the whole book. Until she's not but then she is again.

I know this is directed to teen girls but honestly the characters just whined and there was nothing fun here to engage readers.

November 2021: the series is holding up but like we secretly wash the jeans at the end of the summer right?

May 2016: I'm glad this series is still holding up to what I remember it to be.

n  This review is also posted on my blog.n

My first review of 2018! And it’s only the 4th!!

No really, I figured that if I read at least 15% of my book every day, there’s no way I can fall behind this year. IT SHOULD WORK.

But anyway.

Good GOD, the first half of this book was fucking unbearable. Like – alright, I get it, these are 16 year old kids who are still working out how to feel feelings and do life right, but, FUCKING CHRIST. This is a whole new level of shitty and just goddamn stupid. How fucking insufferable it all was and how easy it felt that it could all be fixed if any of them would just take their heads out of their butts and SEE CLEARLY is what knocked off the first star.

What knocked off the second is the shitty gendered language that didn’t even get challenged, all the fat shaming, generalized hive-mind statements like “women tended to take the size to the fitting room they wish they were instead of the size they actually are” sprinkled all OVER the story, a noted use of the word “retarded,” implying that to be suicidal is to be “weak” and “give up too easily” even a little bit (while never actually using the phrase “Bridget’s mom committed suicide”), and probably a couple other specific things I can’t remember right now but bookmarked in my brain as “YEP there’s ANOTHER awful thing.” I mean, I specifically remember the point where I went “YEP this book just fell down to three stars.” So yeah.

So, the only redeeming factors are that the INSUFFERABLE parts only went on for the first half of the book. Once you reach the second part, it tones down considerably as character development hits and all four girls actually become decent functional people. (I may take that back about Bee – she was the one who had it the most together and seemed the most understandable and was *not* a toxic human being during most of the book. So I actually take it all back about Bee. She was okay. I liked her a lot.)

And the ending was cute, all things considered, and the character development was actually quite nice and felt fair, and I really liked the focus on mother-daughter relationships.

So, even though I didn’t enjoy it at ALL like I did when I first read it at 16 (it must have annoyed me even then for me to give it four stars at the time), and at one point I actually faced the very sad realization that I might not want to continue this series (see the entire first half), by the time the book ended I still enjoyed it enough to want to move on to book three.

I’M STILL JUST EXCITED I ALREADY FINISHED MY FIRST BOOK THO.

storylines ranked:
1. bee

Better than the first. The ending made me angry and sad though. Poor, poor Lena.