Synopsis:
EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE – ESPECIALLY HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS SPENCER, ARIA, EMILY, AND HANNA
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 the dirty secrets they’ve kept. And guess what? I’m telling.
Review:
This book is almost 18 years old and my god is it showing its age. There are so many things said in this book that you just wouldn’t say today. 2006 was such a different time though, so I’ll let it get away with some of it.
I love Sara Shepard (she follows me on Instagram) and I love Pretty Little Liars. The show was my absolute life when it first aired, which may lead you to think ‘why am I only just reading this now?’. Well, I don’t have a good answer for that really. I’d accepted that this would be a book series I’d never read as honestly, I had no interest in them. But this popped up on Kindle Unlimited so I thought I’d give it a go.
Unfortunately, the rest of the series isn’t available through Kindle Unlimited so I don’t think I’ll continue, but if they ever go on sale, I’d probably check out the next book.
There are absolutely areas of this book that I don’t agree with, but I do think they have their reasons. Take Hanna’s character for example. She’s ‘the fat one’ of the group, something that people around her would point out, especially Allison. While I don’t agree with the fatphobia of the book, it is there for a reason. Fatphobia should never be used as a plot device though – this is something that shows the age of this book. Plus this is about bitchy teenage girls.
I’m honestly shocked that the entirety of this book is just the first episode of the show. I didn’t think the pacing was particularly slow, but when you think about it that way, it’s like a snail’s pace. Pretty Little Liars came out back when shows had at least 22 episodes per season. There are 16 books in this series though, so maybe it’s not actually so bad.
Speaking of the show. I definitely prefer the show to the book. It made a lot of changes, mostly for the better and I love that they made the characters more diverse and definitely less phobic of all kinds. The show isn’t perfect, not at all, but it’s such a chaotic unhinged mess (in the best way possible).
Reading Pretty Little Liars has made me want to watch the show again and maybe I’ll actually finish it this time. Spoiler alert, but I hated that Spencer and Caleb started dating and I had to stop watching. I’m a Hanna and Caleb girl for life!
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