Pretty Little Liars
Fiction/Mystery
By: Sara Shepard
Reviewed by: Savannah Howland
Rated: 5 out of 5 stars
Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily were four girls with a dark past that kept threatening to catch up with them. These four girls and Alison, former queen bee of Rosewood, were the best of friends right up until the summer after seventh grade. Then it happened, Alison went missing after she stormed off at the girls’ end of the year sleepover, and no one can remember what happened. Alison’s body was never found. She was the one who brought all of the girls together, the reason they were all best friends. But, after that they had a difficult time finding a reason to stay friends and eventually grew apart. Emily went back to just hanging out with her swim team friends, Aria and her family moved to Iceland, Spencer focused solely on being a perfectionist and topping her big sister Melisa’s accomplishments, and Hanna became best friends with Mona Vanderwaal and transformed her pudgy self into the most popular girl at Rosewood Day Academy. Three years passed, and the girls’ lives remained for the most part exactly like this right up until junior year. At this point Aria had just moved back and the school year was beginning to start up again. Most of the girls tried to forget the chapter of their life that included Alison. But, that was kind of hard for them to do since shortly after school started the girls began to receive mysterious notes about their past, secrets they had never told anyone but Alison. And, what was even creepier was the fact that the text messages were signed with a crisp letter, “A”, and whoever “A” is, is threatening to tell. All of the girls thought Alison had returned, but not long after the mysterious texts, Alison’s body was found buried in the backyard of her old house when the new people who moved in were undergoing construction work. This turned the preppy little town of Rosewood upside down, and confused Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily more than you could possibly imagine. Tons of different questions raced through their heads, who is this “A”?, who killed Ali?, and most importantly, how does “A” know so many secrets about their past when the only person they ever told was Ali?
Pretty Little Liars is a fiction book with tons of drama and mystery. At 304 pages this book is a little on the mature side, and would probably be preferred by older teen girls. Some of the content inside the book might not be very age appropriate and is more suitable for people ages 15 and up according to commonsensemedia.org. If you like a good book with loss, mystery, addiction, rule breakers, secrets, and four pretty little liars running from their dark pasts then this is definitely a great book for you. This book will catch you with its mystery and you will not be soon to lose your intrigue. Pretty Little Liars is the first of eight books in the series, and you will definitely have a tough time putting it down. If you have seen the TV show series you should be warned it isn’t very similar to the books. In August of 2010, Pretty Little Liars stole the first place as New York Times #1 top seller and has sold over thousands of copies. You won’t want to miss out on this series!
