Pretty Little Liars (Pretty Little Liars, Book 1)
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 all the dirty secrets they've kept. And guess what? I'm telling.
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Community Reviews
Ah, poorly written teen drivel. Sometimes, it's awful. . sometimes, I love it. This is an example of one occasion where I love it. However, this is probably mostly due to my love of the TV show. I started reading this series because of the TV show. I wanted to know how it was different from the books, any spoilers I might be able to pick up, you know, the usual.
Well, for those interested, this whole book was just the pilot episode of the show, basically. Aside from the fact that Sara Shepard has truly hideous metaphors, tells more than shows, and has to describe not only every character's physical attributes but goes into great detail about what kind of handbag they're holding, I was surprised/disappointed with much of the book.
1.) They're not friends. In the show, they're friends again right after the pilot episode and they're such a great support system for each other. It doesn't really matter that all this crazy stuff is happening, because they're all helping each other constantly. In this book, they are more frenemies than anything. In fact, I am halfway through book 3 and they're STILL not really friends. Kind of disappointing for me as a reader.
2.) Whoa. There are way more naughty things in the book. In the TV show, the first sex scene is, I believe, in Season 2 and it's pretty darn wholesome. The next one is much-anticipated and between two characters that you truly believe are right for each other and have been dating for a while and it's pretty beautiful, if I do say so myself. Now, while this version may be truer to life (one girl loses her virginity almost on a whim, lovesick and puppyish, and gets dumped a few days later. . .how many times has that happened in real life? So many.), it was kind of abrupt. There's another character who is on-again/off-again with a very forbidden character, and I was unpleasantly surprised to find that she ended up naked in bed with him. There was also much more drinking, but that's not really something they shy away from in the TV show. It's not that I dislike talking about the naughty things (sometimes, the naughtier the better, as we all know) or think that they were inappropriate (again, how many girls did I know who went through these exact circumstances?), they just caught me off guard.
3.) You really do get a sense of what a mean-spirited person Alison is. Even though "A" feels a little less threatening to me in the book, Alison as a character is large and in charge and everyone is so frightened and awed by her that the cow-towing completely makes sense.
Again, this book is not well written. Unless you're a fan of mediocre girly teen drama or the TV show, I wouldn't recommend it. It's not exactly a Nobel Prize-winning piece of literature. However, I enjoyed it. And, because it went to tantalizingly slow in terms of lining up with the show, I think I'm going to have to keep reading.
Well, for those interested, this whole book was just the pilot episode of the show, basically. Aside from the fact that Sara Shepard has truly hideous metaphors, tells more than shows, and has to describe not only every character's physical attributes but goes into great detail about what kind of handbag they're holding, I was surprised/disappointed with much of the book.
1.) They're not friends. In the show, they're friends again right after the pilot episode and they're such a great support system for each other. It doesn't really matter that all this crazy stuff is happening, because they're all helping each other constantly. In this book, they are more frenemies than anything. In fact, I am halfway through book 3 and they're STILL not really friends. Kind of disappointing for me as a reader.
2.) Whoa. There are way more naughty things in the book. In the TV show, the first sex scene is, I believe, in Season 2 and it's pretty darn wholesome. The next one is much-anticipated and between two characters that you truly believe are right for each other and have been dating for a while and it's pretty beautiful, if I do say so myself. Now, while this version may be truer to life (one girl loses her virginity almost on a whim, lovesick and puppyish, and gets dumped a few days later. . .how many times has that happened in real life? So many.), it was kind of abrupt. There's another character who is on-again/off-again with a very forbidden character, and I was unpleasantly surprised to find that she ended up naked in bed with him. There was also much more drinking, but that's not really something they shy away from in the TV show. It's not that I dislike talking about the naughty things (sometimes, the naughtier the better, as we all know) or think that they were inappropriate (again, how many girls did I know who went through these exact circumstances?), they just caught me off guard.
3.) You really do get a sense of what a mean-spirited person Alison is. Even though "A" feels a little less threatening to me in the book, Alison as a character is large and in charge and everyone is so frightened and awed by her that the cow-towing completely makes sense.
Again, this book is not well written. Unless you're a fan of mediocre girly teen drama or the TV show, I wouldn't recommend it. It's not exactly a Nobel Prize-winning piece of literature. However, I enjoyed it. And, because it went to tantalizingly slow in terms of lining up with the show, I think I'm going to have to keep reading.
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