From Jill

When I saw the cover, I had to buy it. Something about the jaunty title and the denim pants caught my eye. I was a 30-year old wife and mother, but I remembered my own antics as a girl, and devoured the book during a trip to visit my grandparents. It was the first trip I took away from my husband and little boys. I felt guilty about leaving them, but sleeping in my grandparents pull-out couch with a pink checkerboard quilt made me feel young again, as young as Bridget, Carmen, Tibby and Lena. I remembered the close and intense friendships I had during my own high school years; crippling feelings of insecurity, longing for love, and timid hopes for the future. At one point in the story, Lena flies to Bridget to comfort and mother her, and I remember wishing I had been more capable of nurturing my own girlfriends. I loved the fact that each girl maintained her own identity along with supporting her friends. How had the author made something that felt so complicated (to me), seem so simple?

After reading the book, I resolved to tend to my orphaned relationships. I began a journal to share with my best friend from high school (who lived across the states). We shared our thoughts and dreams in its pages. Each time the journal would return to me I felt a healing and hopefulness about our relationship.

"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" was a life-changing book for me, one that helped me to remember something I temporarily forgot; that it’s never too late to share your heart and life with someone you love, and never too late to reflect on who you’ve been and who you are becoming.