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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Dios mio Sara Shepard.
Nunca se que esperar de los libros de PLL. Son muy diferentes a la serie de tv y todo lo que sucede en la historia es algo nuevo para mi. Los misterios son demasiado distintos a los que vemos en la serie pero me gustan igual o hasta incluso más.
Este en especial me mantuvo pegado todo el tiempo. Crushed terminó de una manera explosiva y el final ponia a este libro muy alto, y dejenme decirle que las expectativas fueron cumplidas. Hubieron varias cosas que me dejaron boquiabierto y mas o menos a partir de la mitad el resto del libro se me fue volando.
No esperaba que en este libro se nos revelara cierta cosa, lo cual me sorprendio. El twist que dio la autora me parecio magnifico y en ningun momento lo esperé.
Ahora que solo me quedan dos libros más no se que esperar, pero estoy muy emocionado por leerlos.
“No one here gets out alive.”
Surely this is a promise from Shepard that the horror will soon be over. Not this volume, not the next volume, but surely by the volume after when this cycle is supposed to close, all four PLLs and every one of their idiotic family and friends will die horribly as Rosewood is destroyed in a well-deserved apocalypse?
In the meantime, we’re back to talking about Alison. Naturally. First we have to go through the cabin fire yet again, but this time from Alison’s point of view. Things go exactly the same except that we now hear of Ali’s male accomplice “the boy I’ve loved forever”, Then it’s out of the prologue and back to the other four idiots.
First priority is once again to explain what the hell was going on at the end of the last book, whilst simultaneously trying to add all the new gibberish we’ve learned into the increasingly unlikely back-story. Aria interrogates Noel in his hospital bed with the assistance of a cardiac monitor which doubles as a true-love lie detector and flashes hearts whenever he talks about Ali, which is presumably standard medical equipment in Rosewood. Apparently he has been secretly seeing Ali for years, throughout the incarceration in the Plot-Creating-Teen-Girl-Mental-Institute up the road, the part when her evil twin sister stole her life, the murder of Courtney-when-she-was-Ali, the investigation of Ali’s murder and the numerous blackmail plots, but didn’t mention it so as not to cause trouble. Personally if I was visiting a girl half a mile from her home whilst the investigation of her murder was happening next door, I might think of speaking up. But not Noel. It was too much of a bother.
Luckily we don’t have to think too hard about this gibberish, as it doesn’t matter anymore since we’ve started a new book. All that matters is that it wasn’t Noel helping Ali after all, it was one of the other secret boyfriends she was seeing whilst concealed from the world for 4 years in an asylum. But who? All we know about “Helper A” (yes, we’re officially calling them that) is that they have a deep voice and their name begins with N. Unless of course they have been using an alias whilst committing the series of heinous crimes attributed to them. In which case, it doesn’t.
So, the investigation begins. Spencer and her internet boyfriend Chase go and search an empty house which Chase suspects Ali is at, because he saw it on the web or summat. She isn’t, although her evil laugh is. Hanna sleeps with her sex-beast boyfriend Mike as a reward for him working out after only six books that Ali is still alive and stalking them. This in mainly notable for it being described as both Hanna and Mike’s first time, which is news to me. Not in the case of Mike, he is exactly the type of misogynist tragedy case who I would expect to remain a virgin indefinitely. But if Hanna is still a virgin then I’ve been seriously misreading these books. Meanwhile Emily goes to the mental institute apparently just to ask the staff if they know who “Helper A” is, which they don’t. However she does learn that Iris the random mad girl has disappeared. Which in fairness is hardly out of character. And Aria decides to escape the ‘A’s by going to Amsterdam, forgetting that her omniscient and eternally funded enemy has already proved able to follow her anywhere, however unlikely it might seem to the reader and/or possessor of common sense. But as it turns out she gets arrested almost immediately for crimes against narrative and character, so that’s the end of that plan. Meanwhile great chunks of each chapter are taken up with flatly re-stating all the many, many stupid things that have already happened, thereby reminding me how ridiculous this story is. Why does Shepard even want me to keep up with her? Surely droning on and on about all the idiotic, evil and inexplicable things Ali has done over the course of these books only serves to emphasise the complete illogicality of events? Why is any of this happening anyway? Ali apparently didn’t even know the PLLs, since it turns out that the whole time they were friends with her she was actually her own evil twin. Why doesn’t she spend some time destroying the parents who had her committed, or her super-loving brother who didn’t notice that she’d been swapped with her twin and then suddenly disappeared from the story? Why won’t it just stop?
But it doesn’t. It just gets stupider. The residents of Rosewood are out in force waving placards and protesting about the local serial killer, even though I’m pretty sure serial killing is already illegal and therefore a protest is somewhat superfluous. The local media continue aggressively harassing super-rich teen girls, even within their gated community and on the grounds of their exclusive school. Spencer gets in trouble because A has photoshopped a picture of her trashing her stepfather’s show home, using yet more of the super computer skills she developed at some unstated point. In fairness, I suppose it’s more realistic than magic hacking. Not only are Spencer’s parents not suspicious at this unsolicited photograph of their daughter but the police force also find nothing odd in an anonymous tipster informing them that she totally bought some drugs last year at some point, and rush to arrest her. They’re equally quick to respond to similarly mysterious photographs of Hanna’s stupid car accident (from which the others have been photoshopped out, for some bizarre reason) and Emily kissing a girl who may or may not be a known criminal, whilst she may or may not have been on the run. This is of course undisputable evidence of aiding and abetting, as even the FBI agree, and consequently all four of the girls are in simultaneous police custody. Again.
Once more, the police pop them all into the same cell, for ease of conspiracy. Fortunately they’re too stupid to do anything except list all the many, many things they’ve done which could have led to their arrest. Eventually Spencer suggests that they ask the FBI for immunity from prosecution for all their serious misdemeanours, in exchange for them revealing the absolutely nothing they know about Alison. Incredibly Agent Fuji immediately approves this, without checking with her superiors or questioning what the FBI will tell the many victims of the girls’ crimes. So now everything is fine, the police will catch Ali and however many helpers they now think she has, and the girls can go home, shut up and leave me alone. Which could have happened eight books ago if the girls had just gone to the police in the first place instead of committing a series of unnecessary criminal acts in order to provide fodder for blackmail.
The PLLs head home with their instantly provided 24-hour security guards to live happily ever after. This leaves us with a main storyline of Emily’s sister coming home and being mildly rude to her, which I’m not exactly on the edge of my seat about. Apparently she received a note from A saying that Emily is about to commit suicide, and has returned to check that it isn’t true. Which it isn’t. So that’s alright then. To be honest, it hasn’t been one of A’s best tricks. Meanwhile Aria gets a job in an art shop, Spencer and her boyfriend clean up a house, and Hanna’s relatives receive the same pretend threats of suicide as those of the other girls, although Hanna is the only person stupid enough to let at least one person believe they’re actually true. To be honest, this isn’t the most exciting PLL book. Meanwhile Spencer finds a keychain from some fancy car in the trashed house (a clue!), just after it’s been thoroughly checked by the forensic team.
The dullness continues. Hanna has a chat with her parents. Spencer goes for coffee with her boyfriend. Aria goes to work, and meets a sexy artist who immediately starts boasting to her about all the celebs he totally hangs with and trying to get her to sleep with him by describing her totally original “surreal” paintings of her ex in various different colours and looking a bit melty as “amazingly deep.” Hanna does a PSA about drink-driving for her father, and as an afterthought gets a bar shut down for serving her alcohol.
The threats from A keep coming, but no actions back them up. Everyone wears clothes I don’t understand (Sperry Top-Siders?) and eats things I’ve ever heard of (sugary crullers?). Spencer’s boyfriend offers to write some love poetry for her. The PLLs dream about a future where Ali is caught and they all become celebrity victims and get to go on Oprah. Then, suddenly, some action. Agent Fuji and the FBI swoop on Rosewood and arrest all 4 PLLs again, for the bloody Tabitha murder, which will never go away. Plus, dramatic revelation: the texts and letters from A have been forensically analysed and it turns out that the PLLs are all A!. Well, either that or Ali has been hacking into their phones and computers (which she has) and cunningly wearing gloves when sending blackmail notes to avoid leaving fingerprints. But that seems a bit far-fetched.
So the girls are back in custody again. Although at least this time one of the parents thinks to get them a lawyer. The other 7 parents still don’t seem terribly helpful though. The latest development is that apparently a surveillance video has turned up showing the four girls violently beating Tabi to death with pieces of driftwood. How Ali has faked this I don’t know, but I presume it involves 3 helpers (official name: “Team A”), some very good quality wigs, access to the exact clothes the girls were wearing that night and the private beach on which the murder allegedly occurred, and a desperate suspension of disbelief. To be honest it would be more realistic if I turned out that the PLLs had smashed Tabi’s head in and then forgotten about it due to group amnesia. It’s not as stupid as Hanna’s suggestion of PLL clones anyway.
Bail posted, the girls head home. Emily’s girlfriend who she may never see again due to her being on the run from the law takes time to text and tell her she’s disappointed. Not because of the murder charge. Because she’s somehow got hold of a photograph of Emily dancing with another girl, and is some type of domestically abusive control freak who thinks she has the right to get on her high horse about it. Then Emily and her sister beat each other up and in the process smash a bunch of hideous kitsch china figurines, which I think sounds quite funny, but manages to upset her mother so much she has a heart attack. Spencer’s boyfriend breaks up with her, which is presented as an equally serious problem. Hanna’s dad stops speaking to her because she’s hurt his political campaign, and also because he’s a great big baby. Emily’s criminal girlfriend is traced and arrested due to her cyber-harassing of Emily for dancing with another girl, which is somehow Emily’s fault. Aria forgets to do anything for a few chapters except consider pleading insanity, before remembering that the only mental institute in the area is chock-full of her mortal enemies. Eventually things get so bad that the girls are forced to take drastic action and ask previous suspects Melissa and Officer Wilden for help. Fortunately Wilden is more than happy to illegally access police sound-analysis software, which is available freely on the internet since his years-old password is still valid. This is not how police IT works. Ali has considerately provided a sound recording of herself laughing, as she so loves to do, with mysterious clue sounds in the background. These are crowd noise and the voice of an announcer saying “Mo Mo”. However before any further information can be gleaned the system suddenly decides Wilden is an unauthorised user and kicks him out of the software. This isn’t how any IT works.
The four idiots return home to wait and see if any more clues fall into their laps. Emily calls the mental home again and finds out that Iris is still missing and the staff still don’t know who any of Team A are. Also, she suddenly has a brother, Jake. Has he ever been mentioned before? Emily’s not interested either way since, in a plot development simultaneously incredibly predictable and totally unbelievable, she decides that she might as well actually go and kill herself, as A has been suggesting throughout the book. Accordingly she heads off to a picturesque local bridge. However her resolve has gone by the time she gets there, and she calls Spencer to come and save her from the brink of death, showing a flair for dramatics I’d not previously noticed. A lot of Emergency Services time is wasted, and Emily is fine. Then the girls suddenly think that maybe they could question Noel about the multitude of secrets he knows regarding Ali, which they have been aware of since before the book even began. After only 28 chapters! Pretty swift thinking for our beloved protagonists.
It turns out that Noel has had a secret way of contacting Ali along, but didn’t tell anyone because…I dunno. Noel is a bit weird, to be honest. He and the four PLLs immediately head off for a secret meeting with Ali at the public library, which could have been held in Chapter 1 and saved a lot of bother. However, being who they are they fuck the whole thing up completely and waste yet another chapter. Then it’s off to court. The hearing takes about 15 seconds before it’s decided that they will be extradited to Jamaica the following day after a last night of freedom at home, flights to be arranged and paid for by their families. Surely this isn’t how matters actually work in US courts? Then as they leave court the anti-murder protesters turn up again, and the girls suddenly realise that the shouted “Mo mo” on Ali’s considerate clue message was actually the first two syllables of the embarrassingly pathetic chant “No more murder!” Luckily Hanna knows exactly where the marchers were at the very minute Ali made that call many weeks previously: on the street outside her father’s offices. Which means she must still be there now! Of course!
And so the four criminals awaiting deportation and trial sneak out of their respective houses unobserved and rush off unarmed to confront Ali and her team of psycho killers. They discuss options and decide that the best plan is to break into the most suspicious-looking building on the road (i.e. the creepy, run-down one that smells of dead animals). Inside they find a man with a gun who has apparently been masquerading as every single male person any of the four girls have ever met: Jackson the bartender who served Hanna, Derrick Emily’s best friend when she lived in a completely different city, Phineas the guy who sold Spencer drugs at university, Olaf the Icelandic master criminal and Tripp, who Iris was in love with. Although actually his name is Nick. Which begins with an N. Like the clue!! There’s a brief problem when Hanna remembers that she met Olaf, and should therefore have realised that he was the same person as Jackson, but she also realises that she is too stupid to recognise people and so everything’s fine story-wise except for how the hell this guy could possibly have been in all those places at once. But before anyone can ask that Ali jumps in with a gun and demands that the chapter ends.
Ali’s plan is to gas the PLLs in the basement in front of an Ali shrine, hoping it will look like the suicide she’s been going on about for the whole book. But whilst she’s busy taunting Emily for having fancied her twin five years ago Nick manages to suffocate by accident. And then the police turn up just as everyone collapses.
It turns out that the police had been after Nick all along, even though they’d closed the case and decided that the girls had made everything up. He is now in custody but Ali has escaped and no one saw her because for fuck’s sake! Also the murder video is now a proven fake, with no explanation, and Ali has provided a new video showing Nick committing the murder, although I’m not sure why. Then we get an epilogue showing Ali escaping to her Even-More-Secret-Hideout that Nick didn’t know about, and wickedly plotting to get some plastic surgery to fix her burns and then return to destroy the PLL’s yet again. Don’t know why she didn’t do this before, since apparently Nick’s trust fund has provided her with infinite sums of money. Don’t know who Nick, Master of Disguise, was or why he decided to dedicate his life to Ali and super-evil. Don’t know what happened to the rest of “Team Ali”. Don’t know why any of this happened. Don’t care.
Worst Names
Bo (m)
River (f)
Nico (m)
Asher Trethewey (m)
Immaculata University (not a person. Just the Virgin Mary’s alma mater)
Maxine Preptwill
Most Stereotyped Depiction of a Dutch Person’s Office
The inside of the office smelled like apple pie. On the wall were drawings of the dykes around Amsterdam and a photo of a little girl in huge, yellow wooden shoes.
Although despite them being one of the world’s most well-known stereotypes Aria hasn’t actually heard of clogs.
Most Stereotyped Depiction of an Italian
Nico the coffeeshop owner:
“a silverhaired man in a pinstriped, three-piece suit …He looked like someone out of The Sopranos”
Most Racist Attitude to Said Stereotypical Italian
“I invited Nico to Sunday dinner once … My parents looked at me like I was out of my mind. They were sure there was going to be a police raid on the house.”
Most Random Cultural Crossover
“And you know a little Dutch, so that’s helpful.”
“I learned when I was in Iceland,” Aria boasted.
Although it doesn’t compare to the time Mike claimed to have learned Cantonese on the same trip.
Weirdest Church Feature
“phallic-looking pipes protruded from the back wall”
As seen by Hanna. Maybe she is a virgin after all.
Least Surprising Reveal
“Mr. Clark. Mr. Clark?”
… A long-haired brunette … chased a man across the lobby. When she caught up to him, he raised his face, and Hanna almost gasped.
It was Mr. Clark.”
Gave that one away a little early, Ms Shepard.
Strangest Description of a Police Cell
The whole place smelled vaguely of grape Popsicles.
Most Wastefully Unexplored Childhood Issue
“when Aria was younger and afraid to go to sleep because she thought a giant eel lived in her closet.”
Most Unrealistic Expectations of a Bodyguard
Mike:
“Do you think he’s carrying a flamethrower?”
Most Unlikely Accident
“When they were living in Iceland, Ella had broken her leg while trying to catch a lost baby puffin up a tree.”
Still, I bet it happens all the time in Iceland. It is in Europe. You know what they’re like.
Which leads to:
Worst Example of Parenting
“…she’d asked Aria to drive their Saab to the grocery store. Never mind that Aria was only fourteen and had never driven in her life.
Yeah, never mind the lives of the innocent citizens of Iceland and her own daughter. There’s snack food that needs buying.
Most Embarrassing Attempt to Be Cool
Asher the artist describing San Francisco:
“It’s chill.”
Least Realistic / Most Racist Depiction of a Prison
“Have you seen the prisons in Jamaica? They’re filled with snakes. And they, like, force you to do gravity bongs there. It’s one of their torture methods.”
Hanna really is beyond stupid
I felt this book was the most unrealistic, (but again, this is kind of the point) but I still finished the book and I'm excited for the next release. So it can't be that bad. ;)
I found Nick's (I think that's his name?) everywhere-ness to be a little over-the-top...but still deliciously creepy.
Nonetheless, I'm excited about the next book. I do hope that the next book will be the last and the book after will be some sort of companion piece, like book 0. I wonder if she'd write one from "real Ali"'s perspective? I don't know how she wouldn't.
Anyway, as much as I wanted this series to end before reading this book, while reading it I realized I didn't want it to end! Some of the books in the series have been a little dull, but this one made up for that dullness. It grabbed me from the beginning and I couldn't stop reading.
So much has happened to the Liars and so much has been done by them, and you cant help but wonder how the hell they get away with that stuff. But in this book everything comes full circle and all the secrets and lies catch up to them. There was some heartbreaking parts, in particular Emily's part with her parents and Hanna's dad. It was nice to see that the Liars finally get some sense of relief. Of course, it was short lived. I really liked Noel and Mike in this book, their true character showed and I fell in love again with them.(I only wish the TV version of Noel was as nice as this one... :( ) The parents were great as well, well just Ashley and Ella. The rest were horrible especially Emily's family. They don't deserve her love anymore.
They ending of this was weird. Of course we finally found out who A really is and her helper. But it ended so abruptly and the last chapter was almost as if A was finished with the whole thing. This makes me curious about book 15. Is it only gonna be about the Liars tracking A down or will A be up to her old habits and terrorize the Liars alone now? I guess I will have to wait until next year to find out.
I'm pretty sure the last time I read a PLL book (Crushed) was in 2013 so I was pretty confused when I tried to get back into these. I have the last three and then a prequel to finish up the series. Unfortunately I couldn't really find a good in-depth recap for the series until this book but figured out enough to run with it. So while I was still a little confused by characters/events that recaps didn't mention, I was still able to mostly understand what was going on. I forgot how crazy these books were getting.
This book is no exception. It started off a bit boring but got pretty interesting fifty some pages in. The liars going to the police for help? Guards are keeping Ali away? Peace at last? Obviously too good to be true. And so it was. Things get pretty exciting once A somehow manages to make not only the police but the FBI believe the liars killed Tabitha Clark in Jamaica. Who knew Ali could be so tech savvy to fool government agents?
200 pages in and this was a hard book to put down. While the plot itself was melodramatic and at times so unbelievably silly, it still gripped me like that soap opera I used to adore. You've got to give Sara props for entertainment.
Setting:
Rosewood and all it's usual haunts, so nothing too new there. Feels like the other books.
Characters:
I thought it was kind of admirable that the girls finally went to the police with the texts and everything, even though that kind of backfired for a while. As usual, each girl has their own set of problems, mostly dealing with family and love interests.
Spencer is falling for Chase, an internet blogger/investigator she met in the last book (I think) and finally finding that sisterly bond with Melissa.
Hanna's relationship with her father and stepsister seems to be looking up and she gets serious with Mike Montgomery, who turns out to be a pretty terrific guy. I seriously loved how willing Mike was to get involved in the A business to protect Hanna and his sister. "We need to find this bitch. Now." Amen!
Aria and Noel are on rocky ground after he is found near death in a closet by the liars. She isn't sure whether to trust him or not. When an opportunity to go aboard for art gets messed up thanks to A, Aria's mother suggests she work at her gallery and meets a lawyer/artist who is impressed with her work.
And poor Emily is having a pretty rough time. She allowed Ali to live and is paying dearly for it. Her family also seems to be in financial trouble, especially when they have to bail her out. Emily's mother has a heart attack after Carolyn and Emily have a physical fight but of course it's all Em's fault. The poor girl even contemplates suicide but the others talk her out of it.
Mike Montgomery and Noel Kahn have certainly become a lot more upstanding than I remember them being. I love that they are there for the liars.
Relationships:
The girl's relationship is my favorite. They have gotten so close that their reactions toward one another are almost like clockwork.
I like Noel and Aria together, but Mike and Hanna are definitely my favorite romantic couple.
Chase and Spencer's budding relationship was also cute but unfortunately he ends up chickening out at the end. Maybe he'll redeem himself. We'll see.
Ali claims that the girls are obsessed with her but obviously it's the other way around..just saying.
Writing/Voice:
Shepard still manages to hook me even after thirteen of these. While I will be glad to finish the series and feel it was way dragged out, she still manages to paint some pretty cool trainwrecks.
Ending:
It looked like the liars may very well go to Jamaica and end up in prison but thankfully the girls find A's helper and Ali herself, who's description sounds pretty awful at this point. The ending is very thriller-esque and well done. The liars almost die and then the stupid FBI/Police agent has to admit they were wrong (you think?).
Aria and Noel seem to be doing okay again. Ali turns in her helper, who was supposedly the love of her life but she doesn't seem too upset about it. She's got a backup plan as usual and of course there's two more books to get those liars back in.
Overall, I ended up really enjoying this one, even though I am more than ready to find out how everything goes down in the end. I would recommend reading the series within the same year, or at least 1-8 during one year and the rest during the next one or you'll be super confused at first like me.