The Usual Sisterhood Of The Unusual Traveling Pants

 The Sisterhood Of Traveling Pants 

&

 The Second Summer Of Sisterhood:  

          -by Ann Brashares 

"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

"There are tragedies in life- one is not to get your heart's desire and another is to get it"       - George Bernard Shaw

Well this would definitely be rated as one of those times when the movie lived more to the expectations than the book, in short the movie was better than the book. I was lucky enough to watch the movie first and that encouraged me to go through the books as well. 

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened"  - Winston churchill

"Of the thirty six ways of avoiding disasters, running away is the best! " - Anonymous 

'The Sisterhood Of Traveling Pants' goes completely as its name suggests towards a series of intimate friends and the adventures they embark upon with a pair of pants that plays the most significant role of binding them through some made-up rituals of passing them among them and is supposed to be magical. It starts when those pair of pants somehow magically fits all four of them, which to be honest actually appears a lame start and a lame reason for passing the pants among them and all the more stupid reason to believe that there can be magic in them.

      

    I mean honestly who thinks in this way?? But the fact that seemed more appropriate to consider behind the Traveling pants was - they were a very close group of friends and have never been apart 'literally' since birth and this was their first summer away from each other. Somewhere the idea of spending a whole summer without each other made them wish they could have a general ground, something that will be common for them and bind them together through out this whole period, thats where the traveling pants come in. They themselves invented this idea of them being magical to give each other the satisfaction of being there with each other.

Other than that its the usual story of friendship but still different because rather than a story of where people experience things together, 'The Sisterhood…' is actually more about the individual stories of each characters with only the traveling pants and the letters they write to each other, a means to link them. 

"Life isn't fair, its just fairer than death "                   - William Goldman

n I particularly liked the character and story of 'Tibby' because it appeared more real and I could relate to her more than any other character on various levels.Her problems, her passion and her specific situation when 'Bailey' a 12 year girl suffering from 'Leukemia' ( and who is head-on sarcastic) insinuates herself in Tibby's life, and her awkward silence at times says a lot more about her character than the actual words she spoke. Other than 'Tibby' I also liked 'Bridget' and could really see some familiarity in her restlessness due the enormous energy that filled her. 

"Sometimes you need to make a mess" - Lorretta,The Rollinses Housekeeper

"Fear is that little dark room where negatives are developed" - Michael        Pritchard

"Wish for what you want, Work for what you need"                    - Carmen's Grandmother

"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love" - Charlie Brown

"My karma ran over my Dogma" -Bumper Sticker :P

             The most interesting part of the whole series are the 'amazing quotes' that have been placed there before each chapter. They are funny, enlightening, and always gives you a short summary of the whole scenario in just a line, most of the times with metaphors (which m absolutely fond of). The thing which I found hilarious about them was that - obviously there are quotes from famous personalities but there are also quotes from the most insignificant characters in the book, giving a more funny edge to their characters and at times quotes from the main characters too which states their situation from their own point of view. It really was for the sake of these quotes that I wanted to reach to the next chapter as soon as possible because there were times when the story usually just dragged along.   

 Finally, to conclude - there are definitely things in the book that are interesting but its not really a different book in any way, even with the enormous efforts of making it strike as one. If I were to rate it, I would just give it two and a half stars and even those would be just because of the 'Quotes' and tibby's character.

Too bad I really planned on going through the entire series.

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say" - Ralph Waldo Emerson