1. In the book, the girls are fifteen entering the summer before their sixteenth birthdays. In the movie, the girls are already sixteen years old.
2. Bridget has a twin bother, Perry, in the book that is left out of the movie. Lena also has a younger sister, Effie, who is left out as well (although the producers actually included her in the second movie, which I thought was strange).
3. In the movie, the Tibby/Baily relationship begins when Tibby accompanies Bailey to the hospital after she faints in Wallman’s, which she does not do in the book. Tibby even goes to Bailey’s house afterward. In the movie, the Tibby/Bailey relationship truly begins when Bailey comes to Tibby’s house claiming that the Pants have been delivered to her house by mistake.
4. In the book, Lena’s grandmother adores Kostos and immediately tries to set him and Lena up the day she arrives in Greece. Lena is absolutely disgusted by her grandmother’s intentions and so Lena tries to look extra unattractive for Kostos to prove to her grandmother that she has no interest in a summer romance. However, in the movie, Lena’s grandmother hates Kostos and tells Lena that she should have nothing to do with him for controversy between their families.
5. In the book, Lena is spied on by Kostos while she is skinny dipping in a local secluded lake area (well she thought so anyway). She gets so angry at him that she doesn’t take the time to dress herself correctly upon leaving and tells her grandmother that “Kostos is NOT a nice boy”. Lena’s grandmother is then given reason to believe that Kostos has violated Lena causing a severe fude between Lena’s grandfather and Kostos’s grandfather. This never happens in the movie since the Kostos/Lena plot is completely different.
6. In the book, Eric is a handsome Mexican man instead of the blonde American he is portrayed as in the movie. And Brian is a mossy-haired geek boy in the book rather than an Asian like in the movie.
7. In the book, Tibby and Carmen meet Lena and Effie at the airport when they return from Greece, and Lena immediately discuses what has happened to Bridget at camp and how she is aching for someone to come down and be by her side. Carmen, Tibby, and Effie all agree that Lena should use the last of her and her sister’s traveling money to fly to Bridget’s camp ground in Mexico. In the movie, Bridget is already home and accompanies Carmen and Tibby to the airport to meet Lena when she returns home from Greece. Bridget has also already sorted out all the problems she has been having at camp by this point in the movie.
8. Tibby goes through a deep depression in the book over Bailey long after she is gone. She can’t eat, sleep, or do anything she used to do. All she can do is watch Oprah and ignore the rest of the spinning world. In the movie, Tibby bounces back pretty quickly and is back to normal in a much shorter period of time.
9. In the book, Carmen finds The Pants in a thrift store when she goes shopping with Lena. It was Lena’s idea to go in the thrift store in the first place and Carmen didn’t really want to go, so Carmen solely buys a pair of jeans atop the checkout counter (The Pants) just to feel that she went with Lena to the store for a purpose. After the pants have been purchased, she throws them in the back of her closet in attempt to forget them. Much later when she is cleaning out her closet, Carmen sit’s the pants aside with other objects she plans to get rid of. When Tibby sees the pants in Carmen’s “get rid of” pile and wants them is when the four girls develop an interest in The Pants and discover their magic. In the movie, the pants are discovered in a vintage store the day the four plan to depart on their individual summer adventures.
10. In the movie, all four girls of the Sisterhood accompany Carmen to her father’s wedding, but in the book it is just Carmen who goes. Lena has gone to Mexico to be with Bridget, and Tibby has decided to face her sadness of Bailey during that time in the book.
VS. Review:
Because The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants is hands down my favorite series and book of all time, that makes this review a little tougher. In all honesty, the movie and the book are so completely different that it is hard to even compare them because they are almost like two entirely separate stories with the same exact themes, if that makes sense. Within each individual girl’s story, I would have to say that Carmen’s story in the movie is most exact to the one in the book. And if you haven’t guessed by the ten facts above, in the movie, Lena’s story was completely and totally different from her story in the book. In fact, the first time you see the movie after reading the book, Lena’s story is so ridiculously different, it kind of makes you mad and takes time to grow on you to the point where you appreciate it as much as you appreciate the book’s story. But don’t let that keep you from watching the movie. I love the movie because I absolutely love the atmosphere of the movie. Now the atmosphere in the movie was perfection. It was just like the book; very emotional, relatable, and hopeful. There are so many details from the book that have been left out of the movie, it’s hard not to be a little critical, but even so I think that the movie is great the way it is. The first time I saw the movie, I was a really pretty shocked by some of the abrupt changes made to the story compared to those of the stories in the book. But I really did end up loving, enjoying, and watching the movie over and over again much like I love and enjoy reading the book over and over again. I think if you’re a true sisterhood fan, you will really like, if not love, the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and have read the book, I hope these factors will help you to go in with an open mind and know a little bit of what to expect. I truly love both the movie and the book.
