In light of the upcoming Sisterhood of the Pants movie, I dug up my old books.... And remembered why I hate them. That book is one of the worst I have ever read. I keep thinking about it, and I've come up with some theories as to why it's such a stupid book.

Reason number one: No character development. Did I say development? Sorry, I shouldn't have added anything there.

The four girls in the book are the basic skeleton for a hero in a story: good heart, can get tempted, but in the end does the right thing. That’s nice, but you've just described the basic elements of every character ever. In order to make a book worth reading, you have to add a little personality to the characters. Like, just to take a good character you've probably never heard of, Wolf, from the book/movie 10th Kingdom. He's got a good heart, and he does get tempted, but in the end does the right thing. Great. But on top of that, he's got a personality, little quirks, like he always scratches at his left ear if he's nervous about something, he's a little hyper, but people love him even more for it. Lots of people don't trust him, though, because, oh did I mention he's half wolf.

See? People want to read about personalities, not skeletons. Maybe, though, a skeleton was the best the author could put together because

Reason number two: it's about regular people doing regular things. A bunch of teenage girls leave home for the summer and go out to do god knows what. They have some magic pants, that's great. Bu they don't so anything interesting. People don't write about regular people doing regular things, because nobody wants to read about regular people doing regular things. It's just not interesting. Reading this (I didn't get through to the ending, so maybe it was better, but I doubt it) was like having some stranger come up to you from nowhere and start telling you every detail of their summer vacation. You're so busy thinking 'who are you and why should I care,' that you don't even listen.

Now imagine there's four of these people which leads me onto point three.

Point three: there's no involvement. Maybe that's not the right word. But usually in books there's a certain curiosity as to what's going to happen next. This is what keeps you reading, "oh, just one more page, I have to know what's in that cave, I have to know who left those flowers, I have to know if they get away with it." There isn't any of that in this book. And to top it off, there's four stories going on at once, so every time you get interested in something, it switches to another story that you were interested in fifteen minutes ago when you were reading it, but right now you want to finish the story you were just reading.

Point four: This is also like one of those gossip stories you hear from your friends.

Here's an example: I like this guy named Jake, I thought he liked me too, I mean we talk a lot and like the same kinds of stuff. Anyway, I was talking to him today, and he asked me if I knew Jessica. Obviously I do, she's like my best friend and I said so. He asked if I would set him up, and I was kinda disappointed, but I said I would cuz I like him. But then it turns out that Jessica isn't allowed to date for another year and anyway, she doesn't even like him.

He was pretty upset, so I decided that I would make a move, a and I invited him to my party the next week.

I wonder how it'll turn out?

This is your basic hallway-scenario story. The difference between this and the sisterhood book is that in the sisterhood book, it would drop off right now, and we would go off to another story of basically the same depth. Also, in the sisterhood book, they don't like the guys for the same reason I like Jake (that was a true story) they like them because the guy was, 'like, totally hot lol.'

Just in case you care, in the end, Jake did end up coming to my party, but pretty much spent the night on the couch with Britney, who already had a boyfriend, and I decided I didn't really like him that much anyway.

Point five: the style of writing is just bad. (I'm gonna get mail on this I know it, "hey you can't be judging people just cuz they don't write the same as you lol.") And, actually, yes I can. Watch me.

The way it's written, I can't even really describe it. Writing like that is the same as coloring with crayola markers. You look at the picture and say "oh, yes, this shirt is supposed to be red, these jeans are supposed to be blue" but it's more symbolism than actual drawing. You don't get the idea that the story is actually happening. The author is not saying, there are these girls and they have a pair of magic pants, they're really good friends. The author is saying, look, these four names here, they’re supposed to be these four girls, right? And these four girls, they’re really good friends, and they have these, these are supposed to be magic pants, see? Like playing with barbies. This Barbie is friends with these other three barbies. The problem is, if the author doesn’t keep telling us, look, these barbies are friends and they have names and lives, if we're not reminded all the time, the barbies stop being characters and start being pre-molded hunks of plastic and rubber again.

One more thing. The author doesn't use body language, moods or thoughts to tell us how a character is feeling, she just keeps repeating, she felt sad, she felt guilty, she felt happy. Yeah, that's nice, again with the barbies: No facial expression, no body language, just the nine-year-old puppetmaster waving her around saying, "she feels sad, she feels happy, she feels guilty."

When you're writing, push the nine year old out of the way. Do us all a favor, and let the Barbie speak for herself. And if she can't, then don't publish her words.

(7/7/05)