The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

This book secretly snuck it's way in to being read.  I finished up My life in France and was wanting a completely different vibe.  I wasn't quite ready to jump into the second book in the Hunger Games Series since I had just finished the first book previous to Life in France.  I also tried hopping back into Steig Larson's series with The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest (2nd book in that series), but about 10 pages in and I knew it was not the right fit right now. 

My mom knows my love of books that are also movies, so one of her gifts (that incidentally she didn't give to me for Christmas, but she left in our garage accidentally for me to come across) were the books and movies of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.  I picked up the first book to see if it'd be a good easy read right now, and before I knew it I was 40 pages in.  Needless to say, it was super fast read as well as a super easy read (I'm sure the target age for this book is somewhere from 12 or 13 yrs old up to about 20....but who cares...I don't).

In a super quick synopsis, the book centers around four girls that have been friends since they were born.  Their mothers were all friends as the girls were born within two weeks apart of each other.  This will be the first summer in their whole lives that they will be apart; one going to Greece, one to soccer camp, one to visit her Dad, and the other staying home to save up money for a car.  The last night before the girls are set to separate for the summer, they are all together and a pair of jeans becomes the center of conversation.  Each girl tries them on, only to realize they are the most stunning pants they've ever worn.  They decide that amongst their letters to one another to keep updates (I guess this was before email, although I'm not sure exactly when these books were written), they will also send around the pants to bring each other good luck and provide confidence that all the other girls are there too even though they are in different parts of the world.  

There's lots of drama, lots of funny and quirky moments, and it overall is a feel-good story-line.  At the beginning, I had trouble keeping tabs of who was who between the four of them, but about a quarter way in, I had them in line.  The characters are all easy to like, and while they may not fit the mold of anyone specific, they are all very relatable. 

My favorite quote from the book:  "Maybe happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures.” ~Tibby

Between each section of the book (they weren't really chapters, and the sections weren't even distinct segregations from the previous section), there were random quotes.  I say random in a good way, because evening though they only pseudo-fit what was going on in one of the girls lives in that timepoint, bottom-line is that I just really liked all the quotes that they chose.  Silly, I know, but I'm a quote-lover.  Anyways, here they are (highlighted ones I really liked)

Prologue “Not all who wander are lost.” -J. R. R. Tolkien

1."Luck never gives: it only lends.” -Ancient Chinese Proverb
2.“Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.” -Anonymous
3.“Can you make yourself love? Can you make yourself be loved?”-Lena Kaligaris
4.“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”-Jerry Seinfeld
5.“Love is like war: easy to begin, hard to end.”-Proverb
6.“Rule #1: The customer is always right. Rule #2: If the customer is wrong, refer to rule #1.”-Duncan Howe
7.“When life hands you a lemon, say, ‘Oh yeah. I like lemons. What else ya got?’”-Henry Rollins
8.“I have seen the future and it’s like the present, only longer.”-Dan Quisenberry
9.“Sometimes you’re the windshield: sometimes you’re the bug.”-Mark Knopfler
10.“If you feel like you’re under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”-Mario Andretti
11.“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Got that?”-Coach Brevin
12.“If you don’t find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalog.”-Sears, Roebuck catalog
13.“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes.”-Frieda Norris
14."Time tells the truth.”-Fortune cookie
15."Of the thirty-six ways of avoiding disaster, running away is best." - Anonymous
16."Life is so... whatever." -Kelly Marquette aka Skeletor
17.“You make all kinds of mistakes: but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.”-Winston Churchill
18.“Wish for what you want. Work for what you need.”-Carmen’s grandmother
19.“My karma ran over my dogma.”-Bumper sticker
20.“You can take a road that gets you to the stars. I can take a road that will see me through.”-Nick Drake
21.“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
22.“All Moanday. Tearday. Wailsday. Thumpsday. Frightday. Shatterday.”-James Joyce
23.“Is there world enough for me?”-Jane Frances
24.“In your eyes I am complete.”-Peter Gabriel
Epilogue “We will go. Nowhere we know. We don’t have to talk at all."-Beck

If you are looking for a SUPER easy read....and you are a chick....this is your book.  Unfortunately (and by all means prove me wrong), I cannot see this book being a big draw for the guys.  It's about four girls and their drama; enough said.  :-) 

I still haven't watched the movie, but I plan to either this weekend or next.  I'll update with if I liked the movie or book better. 

Happy Reading!