‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ series shows its age with latest

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Updated: June 26, 2011 2:23AM

The sisterhood is back. There are no pants. Is that statement a metaphor?
A riddle? A poor Spanglish retranslation of “the emperor has no clothes?”

No.

The four Bethesda (Md.) teens who comprised Ann Brashares’ four-book “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” series — a modern fairy tale about a magical pair of jeans that made everyone’s butt look good — have returned for a fifth installment. But Sisterhood Everlasting is entirely pants-free.

Longtime readers will remember why: The pants were lost in Greece near the end of the fourth book, and the girls, who originally shared legwear custody, realized that they didn’t need mystical denim to bind them together. That book was released in 2007, but in Pantsland, these events happened 10 years ago. Everlasting is sisterhood meant for adult readers. It revisits Bee, Tibby, Carmen and Lena as they are about to turn 30.

There’s been a lot of revisiting in teen culture recently. The Baby-sitters Club got a reboot. Teen Wolf got a reboot. Earlier this spring the twins of Sweet Valley High reappeared, suddenly 27, with jobs and fiances and quarter-life crises. It’s exactly what any devoted reader always thought she wanted: a chance to see what became of the character she identified with most. Did Elizabeth Wakefield win a Pulitzer? Is Tibby a filmmaker? Exactly how hot did Brian eventually get?

Reboots provide all of that information, but it comes at a price. Knowing what happens means saying goodbye to what could have happened, to all of the possibilities you had concocted for all of the girls you once loved. In this place of Not Knowing, the characters remain bright with potential, teenagers whose teenage problems are cozy retreats for adult readers. In the place of Knowing, they are just twentysomethings with grown-up problems and cruddy temp jobs.

In Sisterhood Everlasting, the girls (women!) are physically far-flung but still emotionally tight. Lena’s an art teacher in Rhode Island; Carmen is a New York actress; Bee ethereally floats through San Francisco. Tibby long ago moved to Australia and lost touch with everyone, until the opening of the book when she suggests they all meet on the Greek island of Santorini. Planning and packing discussions ensue. Then they all arrive, toting Pop-Tarts and other supplies necessary for any “Sisterhood” reunion.

And then, a tragedy.

As series about girl gangs go — the Baby-sitters, the Ya-Yas — the Pantshood has always been touching. The girls feel things deeply and are devoted to one another in a way that is aspirational if not always realistic. They are all imperfect, but all unique. Much of Sisterhood Everlasting is dedicated to exploring how each character responds to the sad event.

Bee predictably goes wandering. Lena predictably thinks of Kostos, who is not the only secondary character to drop in from the earlier books. Story lines involving Eric, Brian and Effie all resolve themselves to varying degrees of completion. For an old reader, it’s like stumbling on the Facebook pages for a bunch of people you once sort of knew. Life histories are doled out in out-of-context info-bits. So that’s where so-and-so went to college!

Sisterhood Everlasting is being marketed as a book for adults, but one wonders which ones. Women who never read the original series will be easily lulled into the comfy, familiar bonds that are resonant with female friendship. But will they stay through the middle parts, which are essentially a deep and repetitive morass of grief reflected through four different perspectives — not to mention a few plot points that stretch even modern fairy tales beyond their limit? Women who are acquainted with the Sisterhood will love the character development, but how will they feel about what those developments mean? Loving the new book means saying goodbye to the old ones. But after all, that’s life.

I read Sisterhood Everlasting in one afternoon. Then I bought the first four novels on my Kindle and re-read those too. Emerging two days later, I felt nostalgia, both for the girls in the novels and for the girls who once read them.

Washington Post