Spencer covets her sister's boyfriend. Aria's fantasizing about her English teacher. Emily's crushing on the new girl at school. Hanna uses some ugly tricks to stay beautiful.
But they've all kept an even bigger secret since their friend Alison vanished.
How do I know? Because I know everything about the bad girls they were, the naughty girls they are, and all the dirty secrets they've kept. And guess what? I'm telling.
Details: Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard, 286 pages, 4.14 stars on Goodreads
My Thoughts: This is going to sound funny, but I put off reading this book for such a long time because I thought it was going to be like the Clique. (The books, I mean.) I read the Clique, and I hated it. Well, actually, that's not true. I liked the parts where bad things happened to the characters, which most likely was not what the author was going for. And you can't really blame me, because Pretty Little Liars just looked like the kind of petty, rich-girl book, with the cover and the title.
Finally, I read the summary (I know, it was bad of me to dismiss the book without even reading what it was about), and I reluctantly thought it sounded sort of interesting. So, I stuck it on my TBR list and promptly forgot about it. Then I read a review that completely raved about it, and I reserved it from the library.
I wish I read this earlier.
Pretty Little Liars was so far from what I expected. It was suspenseful, eerie, a bit creepy, and the twists! So many twists! I honestly got chills in parts, and the last time I got chilled from a book was the manga series After School Nightmare. Which actually wasn't that long ago. Anyway.
The only thing I didn't like very much about the book were the characters. While I wouldn't call them completely flat, I feel like their personalities weren't fleshed out as much as they could have been. However, this is part of a series, so it's very much possible that we'll get to learn more about them in later books. Also, I feel like their problems were rather cliché (crush on a teacher, secretly lesbian, father has an extra-marital affair, etc.), but "A" is such an intriguing person that it doesn't bother me so much.
I'm eagerly awaiting the next book, Flawless! (I'm on the waiting list at the library for the next, oh, four hundred years?)
Plot - 4/5
Characters - 2/5
Writing - 4/5
Impact - 3.5/5
Inability to put it down - 4/5
Overall - 70% = B
6 comments:
Oh my gosh, this series is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE. I've read all the books multiple times. The TV show does not do it justice AT ALL.
Oh yeah, I heard the TV show was pretty bad. I might take a look at it anyway, though.
I've got this on my wishlist somewhere but like you it's kind of been pushed back by other books. I'll have to bump it up again now lol. Thanks for a great review.
I actually haven't read any of these books for the same reasons you list at the beginning! I had the impression they were light and fluffy and full of petty shallow girls, lol. Glad to hear that they actually proved more enjoyable than expected! I too have seen some other positive reviews so perhaps I should really check out the first book at some point. Thanks for the review!
I've been thinking about reading this series since the show came out. Really like the show and usually the books are better (at least it works that way with movies ;)
Great review!
This sort of reminds me of what I thought about a different book - Pretty Little Devils - I thought it would be all mean-girlish but it was really quite scary and suspenseful. I tried to watch the PLL show, but it was just.. kinda lame for me. Maybe I'll check out the books though.
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