All of July, I was able to spend some time in upstate New York in the Adirondacks nd I read three books from a local library that really stuck out to me. Summer is such a great time to really reflect on books read, and I finished all of these three within the span of just a few days. The use of world building and the compelling characters really drew me in. Putting aside their differences, these books made me feel absolutely grounded in their worlds.
“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” by Ann Brashures
“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” by Ann Brashures is a coming of age novel about the importance of friendship and girlhood. Published in 2001, the book has a palpable early 2000s feel that made me nostalgic for a time before I was born. The story follows a group of four best friends, Carmen, Lena, Bridget, and Tibby. Since birth, they have spent every single summer together, getting into trouble and making memories. But the summer of the book is the first one in which they will not be together. Carmen is going to visit her father in South Carolina, Lena is going to Greece to see her grandparents, Bridget is attending soccer summer camp in Mexico, and Tibby will be sticking around in small-town Maryland to work at the local Wallmans.
The day before the girls go their separate ways, they congregate at Carmen’s house, where they stumble upon a pair of jeans that Carmen bought at a thrift store a few days back. Through much trial and error, the girls discover that the pants fit each of them perfectly, despite their different body types. They decide that the pants are magic, and will be referred to as such.
Later that night, they come up with a plan to stay in touch throughout the summer. They’ll ship the pants from Greece, to Maryland, to South Carolina, and finally to Mexico, and back again. When each girl receives the pants, she must wear them as often as possible and write what she did in them in a letter to send to the next recipient. With the “magic pants” binding the girls together all summer, they each go through the turmoil that is teenage life, their stories bringing them close despite the miles separating them.
“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” was also made into a widely loved movie in 2005 that I highly recommend watching.
“Looking for Alaska” by John Green
“Looking for Alaska” by John Green, the best-selling author of “The Fault in Our Stars,” is another coming-of-age high school novel. This one takes place during the school year, as opposed to the summer. It follows Miles Halter, a friendless incoming junior, starting over at the same boarding school that his father attended. There, he meets Chip Martin, his roommate, also known as the Sergent, and Alaska Young. Chip is a firecracker of a teenage boy, with a genius mind and a wily spirit. With the help of Alaska and another friend, Takumi, he makes the boarding school experience as interesting as he can.
From the moment Miles meets Alaska, he is infatuated. She is esoteric and unpredictable, her moods often swinging from the highest highs to the lowest lows within a span of just a few minutes. She and Chip give him the nickname Pudge, an ironic nod to his skinny frame, and from then on the group is inseparable. Takumi, Chip, Alaska, and Miles navigate junior year with an unwavering sense of mischief and the need to live life to the fullest. “Looking for Alaska” feels like a fast-paced dream that John Green concocted to wrench its readers’ hearts.
“The Bell Jar” by Slyvia Plath
My final recommendation is “The Bell Jar” by Slyvia Plath, a story that has sold over three million copies in the United States, and has been published in over 40 languages. “The Bell Jar” tells the story of a girls’ struggle with depression. Esther Greenwood, a college student working a summer internship in New York City, has her whole life ahead of her. She has a brilliant mind and the potential to do whatever is available to her in 1950s America. During her summer internship, Esther meets a series of complex strangers, each of them causing her to question her own personality and motivation in life. During her internship, she begins to experience symptoms of depression. When she discovers she didn’t receive a scholarship to a writing program, her mental illness begins to spiral. Faced with stress stemming from her childish boyfriend with tuberculosis, her overly nervous mother, and her own consciousness, what Esther describes as “The Bell Jar” begins to descend.
According to Esther, this metaphorical glass trap leaves her “stewing in her own sour air.” As Esther continues to degenerate, Plath’s first-person writing takes on a desperate quality, which sells the precarious situation of the female heroine. One of my favorite parts of the novel is when Esther reads a book of short stories, one of them describing a metaphorical fig tree. Esther says, “I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.” This writing style is not uncommon in “The Bell Jar,” which is part of why I admire it so much. The novel covers sensitive subjects such as mental illness, suicide, and sexual situations.
If you have any books you would like me to review, feel free to email me at [email protected].