18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A is for Advanced StAlking, B is for Bitchery and C is for Conclusion!, June 12, 2010
This review is from: Pretty Little Liars #8: Wanted (Hardcover)
I admit that I love chick lit and I also love a wickedly riveting series, such as the Pretty Little Liars Series. It is a pleasant departure from the usual mean girl cliches like the "Cliques," "Sweet Valley High" and other series portraying girls at their cattiest.
Dramatis Personae
Alison "Ali" DeLaurentis: a bright, popular girl who led a clique of other rich, indulged girls. The others are more like satellites than actual friends as they know Ali is a powerful ally to have. They drop designer names every chance they get. They live in Rosewood, a suburb of Philadelphia on the Main Line. Ali, known for insidious cruelty has plenty of secrets. So do the other girls, all of whom have good reason to want Ali to do a permanent disappearing act.
Aria, an attractive, athletic brunette who was glad to escape Rosewood for Iceland. She has a yak-fur bag to which she is inordinately attached. In every installment in the series, you can count on her to reach into that damn yak-fur bag for something. I admit I did get rather sick of that damn yak-fur bag. Aria's father accepts a teaching position there and for 3 years, Aria and her younger brother by 2 years Mike, learn Icelandic and absorb Icelandic culture. Unlike Mike, Aria wants to remain in Iceland. She has a painful non-Ali related secret - she caught her father cheating with another woman. Early in the series, Aria had an affair as well and her mother was involved with a man who tried to seduce Aria. She moves in with her father, new stepmother and sibling-to-be.
Spencer, the grind who sputters at the drop of a designer hat. She earns As and other academic plaudits for real. She has long been eclipsed by her favored older sister, Melissa and has a history of bird dogging Melissa's boyfriends. The second time she does this, her cold-hearted family ostracizes her. To make a bad thing even worse, they even canceled her credit cards without telling her and stopped inviting her to meals. Melissa, a pompous Drama Queen has long reveled in her Favored Daughter status and you just want to kick her in the shins.
Hanna, the former fat girl now turned femme fatale is the weakest link in the chain. Bulimic and insecure, she clings to whoever's wardrobe is most in vogue. These girls all drop designer names and flaunt fashion like it's going out of style. Hanna's relationship with her divorced mother is more like business associates than family. (Hanna's mother works for a company called McManus & Tate, which sounds like a spoof of the advertising firm of McMann & Tate in "Bewitched" [1964-72]). Her father's fiancee Isabel has a daughter Kate who is Hanna's age and Hanna feels that she has been replaced by Kate. In this installment, Hanna receives tickets to a high end fashion show that she believes her mother sent. She invites Kate and Kate's two satellites to join her, only to discover the tickets were a hoax. A is back in town, messing with the girls' minds again. Kate and the Satellites drop Hanna, which turns out to be a good thing in the long run because Hanna is then able to reconnect with the mother she thought had jumped her ship.
Emily is still discovering that love comes in the most unexpected places. A bisexual, she finally accepts that part of her life and it is possible that Alison might have shared her feelings? As the mysterious A continues to tamper with the girls' minds, Emily is all the more convinced that A is telling her that it is past time to come out. Perhaps Alison has something to do with whoever A is?
More mysteries abound. The DiLaurentis family trots out yet another family secret, one who has devastating repercussions on the lives of all of the girls as well as the casualties from the previous installments and the man who was arrested as being A, the Advanced Stalker.
But was he? In the penultimate book, a man was arrested for stalking the girls as A, but the question of his guilt remains. The DiLaurentis' family secret leads to clues and even more questions about to do with the A incidents. Over time, readers will ride the A train to find out who A really is and what this secret means to the Pretty Little Liars, as the Rosewood 4 are called.
The Eagles' 1976 classic "Hotel California" is the town of Rosewood's Anthem as Rosewood and this series is a place where you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. I loved the series and the conclusions (yes, conclusions) are very cataclysmic!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wanted, July 21, 2010
This review is from: Pretty Little Liars #8: Wanted (Hardcover)
*******TREAD WITH CAUTION. MAJOR SPOILERS LIE AHEAD.*******
This entire series has been such a treat. Having a Y chromosome and all, it's kind of embarrassing to say that I have read, much less immensely enjoyed, this entire series. Wanted is no exception. Even though it was bittersweet having to see this series end, its time had come. Only so many people can die and be framed for murders they didn't commit. It ended at the perfect time, too: right before it started getting annoying.
This is by far the most twisted, convoluted, and mind-boggling book in the series. But, when we are first introduced to "Courtney," and Sara Shepard went with the "the evil twin did it!" angle, I was pretty disappointed. Then, when she revealed that she is actually Ali, I was actually angry with this book. I was thinking the series would end with Courtney actually being the sister who was dead, Ali being alive and well this whole time, and everyone living happily ever after, and that would have been a terrible ending. Of course, in Rosewood, nothing is ever, ever, as it seems. I should have known that by now.
I was actually very pleased with how Sara Shepard twisted the evil-twin thing into something much more than that. I had to read the note from the-real-Ali at the end three or four times before I really digested what was going on. The whole "the Ali that Aria, Spencer, Emily, and Hanna were best friends with wasn't really Ali at all, but really a twin named Courtney posing at Ali. And then the real Ali was thrown into a mental hospital, and then came out posing as Courtney. So the four main characters were never friends with Ali, but Courtney-as-Ali, and Courtney isn't Ali at all, but Ali-as-Courtney, and she's trying to kill them all," was definitely convoluted, but was probably the most ingenious conclusion to a series this complex. I applaud Sara Shepard for even being able to come up with a solution to all the crazy things that have been happening throughout this series.
It was also nice seeing how all the girls, pretty much, got a happy ending. They're all moving on with their lives and what-not. Emily has always been my favorite of the four, probably because she's the most tragic of them all. It was almost heartbreaking seeing how much she was clinging on to Ali's (or Courtney-as-Ali...oh, screw it) memory, and how she just couldn't accept that her first love really is gone, and how she finally had to come to terms with the fact that the-real-Ali wasn't the Ali she knew, but a girl trying to kill her. Phew, run-on sentences, anyone? Anyway, Hanna was probably my least favorite, even though I had a special fondness for her, anyway. I would want to feel sorry for her so bad, and when you finally did, she'd turn around and be such a bitch that you'd forget liking her in the first place. However, she was still an interesting character, popularity-obsessed bitch that she is.
However, I did notice a major plot hole. It's completely unbelievable that a ring marked "A" or "C" was the only thing that could possibly tell the two sisters apart. The fact that Mrs. DiLaurentis mistakes Ali for Courtney simply because she's wearing a ring with a "C" on it instead of an "A" is pretty unrealistic. However, it didn't ruin the idea for me; it was just something I noticed.
Also (am I rambling?), the one part of this book that made no sense to me was the epilogue. I milled it over three times and still don't know what it means. Is Ali alive and gone to another school, where she can wreak havoc there? That's the only conclusion I can come to.
Overall, I'm going to miss this series so much. It's unlike anything I've ever read, especially since I never read books like this. Sigh. At least I still have the TV show, hot mess that it is. And, of course, Sara Shepard's new series is coming out this December.
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