SISTERHOOD EVERLASTING.
IS A BOOK THAT EXISTS.
This pleases me.
I suppose I should back up a bit. Did you guys ever read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series? (If yes, I hope you realize my excitement, because all of them were/are fan-frigging-tastic. If no, I urge you to read them while the genre of "Teenage friends go on adventures and develop romantic relationships" is still relevant and appealing to you.)
The book is about the Sisterhood as adults, and everything beyond that that I could possibly say is spoilers. Aside from that it is as good if not better than the previous four. And that's saying something, considering how obsessed I was with the series when I was younger. Looking back, I probably read the first one when I was about nine or ten (lol pretentious child), when being fifteen seemed so far away, and I convinced myself that by that time I would have collected a perfect, quirky group of soul sisters with whom to share clothing.* Having this standard of ideal-teen-friendship-and-summer-exploits set up for me at that age, though, made my own teenagerdom seem pretty dull. By my fourteenth birthday or so I realized my life was not meant to be these (fictional) books incarnate. In some small way, I've always regretted that. I know it's just the media I surround(ed) myself with--that which tells my these years of my life are somehow incomplete if I don't kiss boys under the stars, travel the world, drink at parties, sneak out of the house with my own girl-gang, go on road trips, etc--that has caused this disappointment. But the point is still valid: how much of this is constructed fantasy and how much of it is just my teenage life being subpar?
Anyway, back to why this book is great. I love that these characters exist canonically as mature women. Except for this and the epilogue to Harry Potter, this hardly ever happens. Adulthood makes any set of fictional people seem so much more real. Their lives are no longer confined to a certain span of documented years, the rest of them left to be vaguely defined in the minds of curious readers or by (often kind of crappy) fanfiction. There's closure. (But, as a sidenote, the book ends openly. There could be a sequel to this one and I'd be happy. Yes, there is the argument that this would be beating a dead horse, milking the dry cow of franchise for the sake of $$$, but I have a feeling it wouldn't. There's more to be said without it reaching that point.)
And now I want to read them all again, for the nostalgia. T'were simpler times.
*Minus the fact that we have nothing tangible between us, maybe this blog is like the sisterhood I yearned for at ten. The Sisterhood of the Non-traveling Blog. (Starring Vita as Bee, Alex as Lena, and me as Tibby? All we need is a feisty yet sensitive Latina to round it out. ;))
2 comments:
Isn't Bee the athletic one? FUNNY JOKES YOU TELL.
I think I read the first two and then stopped. I liked the ones I read. The feel a lot more realistic than a lot of realistic fiction, which is nice, I suppose, although apparently not nice enough for me to keep reading...
Still, I could get behind the idea of a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants thing. Here, have some magical jeans: http://www.embroideredideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Jeans1.jpg
I would like to be Lena and make gorgeous Greek boys fall in love with me on vacation but, unfortunately, I can't draw.
Definitely feeling the sisterhood vibe, though. We should break into the virtual equivalent of a yoga studio and light candles and make strange pacts.
I would also like the note that the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 has to have the largest, most varied assortment of hot guys ever brought together in one movie cast. Leo? Brian? Kostas? The British guy who is referred to in my house as "hot Ian"?
I'm going to stop objectifying these actors now but, seriously, well done, casting department.
I actually knew this book existed. When I came home from being away this summer, my sisters were reading it aloud to each other and it kind of sucked for me, not being involved. I feel that maybe I will read it. I did enjoy the Sisterhood as a preteen. It'll happen.
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