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susieliveshere 's review for:
Heartless
by Sara Shepard
Tl;dr: Contrived, a bit nonsensical and not that fun to read, but surprisingly satisfying conclusion.
Well... that was hard to finish. I can't really say why except to reiterate my previous reviews on the pll books 5 and 6. Super contrived, a bit on the nose, and unbelievable. Hannah is the most frustrating in this book because she while ruminating on how Ali had been her best friend and been terrible to her, and how Mona had been her best friend and veen terrible to her, and how Ali had been horrible to Mona for her being a "loser" and how much that sucked - Hannah just makes the same mistake!? Hannah is horrible to the "ugly but nice" girl, befriends the "pretty but mean" girl, and is surprised when it goes tits up for her again??? Like grow Hannah!! Didn't you learn this lesson with Lucas in book 4????? So frustrating!
However I will say (major spoiler) that I really liked a nobody being the killer. Normally in "who- done- it"s you want, in theory to be able to guess who done it. But in the second arc of the same lengthy story with more than one crime to solve, it was surprisingly satisfying and refreshing for our guy to be (almost) no one we've seen before. I believe he's mentioned in passing twice in all 7 books and has no lines. Yet it's still believable that he did it. It was a juxtaposition of the girls obsessively searching through their rosters of friends and family, coming to hard won and convoluted individual conclusions, and suddenly the police are like, no it's just this stranger whose been stalking you girls. It's the book's thesis on destructive obsessive grief. This theme is also pointed at through Aria's search for a psychic, between Emily and her relationship with a girl whose sister went missing, and both Hannah and Spencer in positions to move on and wrecking themselves again and again in the name of finding Ali's killer. It's maddeningly close to something meaningful.
Well... that was hard to finish. I can't really say why except to reiterate my previous reviews on the pll books 5 and 6. Super contrived, a bit on the nose, and unbelievable. Hannah is the most frustrating in this book because she while ruminating on how Ali had been her best friend and been terrible to her, and how Mona had been her best friend and veen terrible to her, and how Ali had been horrible to Mona for her being a "loser" and how much that sucked - Hannah just makes the same mistake!? Hannah is horrible to the "ugly but nice" girl, befriends the "pretty but mean" girl, and is surprised when it goes tits up for her again??? Like grow Hannah!! Didn't you learn this lesson with Lucas in book 4????? So frustrating!
However I will say (major spoiler) that I really liked a nobody being the killer. Normally in "who- done- it"s you want, in theory to be able to guess who done it. But in the second arc of the same lengthy story with more than one crime to solve, it was surprisingly satisfying and refreshing for our guy to be (almost) no one we've seen before. I believe he's mentioned in passing twice in all 7 books and has no lines. Yet it's still believable that he did it. It was a juxtaposition of the girls obsessively searching through their rosters of friends and family, coming to hard won and convoluted individual conclusions, and suddenly the police are like, no it's just this stranger whose been stalking you girls. It's the book's thesis on destructive obsessive grief. This theme is also pointed at through Aria's search for a psychic, between Emily and her relationship with a girl whose sister went missing, and both Hannah and Spencer in positions to move on and wrecking themselves again and again in the name of finding Ali's killer. It's maddeningly close to something meaningful.