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A review by brooke_holc20
Deadly by Sara Shepard
3.0
“No one here gets out alive.” -Jim Morrison
3/5 stars…After the original eight books, Deadly is a shocking return to form. Deadly is much less light-hearted than its predecessors, and it's better for it. While A and the murder storyline is omnipresent, it's the everyday lives of the characters that propel the story forward, and PLL readers have had to endure some truly ridiculous subplots. I'm usually pretty lenient on forgiving that sort of meandering because this series is meant for an audience much younger than I am, and it adds to that aforementioned light-heartedness. Deadly seems to throw all that nonsense out the window and focus solely on the “A” storyline, while any of the relationship/family drama we've come to expect sprouts up naturally around that central focus. This may be off-putting to some because this definitely isn't a "fun" installment - these characters' lives are falling apart worse than ever before - but anything beats some of the things we've been forced to read over the last few entries in this series.
Any PLL reader who has made it this far knows that suspension of disbelief is necessary whenever reading these plots, and this novel is no exception. The ending somewhat renewed my hope in this series arc. It seems like Sara Shepard had no idea what she was doing throughout the last six books, so it was nice to see that she could salvage all of those loose ends into a genuinely surprising plot twist. The big “A” reveal managed to tie up basically every loose end possible. I'm not sure where this series is going to go from here - there doesn't seem to be enough left to constitute two more books + one audio only book - but it was a nice feeling to find myself truly enjoying one of these books again.
3/5 stars…After the original eight books, Deadly is a shocking return to form. Deadly is much less light-hearted than its predecessors, and it's better for it. While A and the murder storyline is omnipresent, it's the everyday lives of the characters that propel the story forward, and PLL readers have had to endure some truly ridiculous subplots. I'm usually pretty lenient on forgiving that sort of meandering because this series is meant for an audience much younger than I am, and it adds to that aforementioned light-heartedness. Deadly seems to throw all that nonsense out the window and focus solely on the “A” storyline, while any of the relationship/family drama we've come to expect sprouts up naturally around that central focus. This may be off-putting to some because this definitely isn't a "fun" installment - these characters' lives are falling apart worse than ever before - but anything beats some of the things we've been forced to read over the last few entries in this series.
Any PLL reader who has made it this far knows that suspension of disbelief is necessary whenever reading these plots, and this novel is no exception. The ending somewhat renewed my hope in this series arc. It seems like Sara Shepard had no idea what she was doing throughout the last six books, so it was nice to see that she could salvage all of those loose ends into a genuinely surprising plot twist. The big “A” reveal managed to tie up basically every loose end possible. I'm not sure where this series is going to go from here - there doesn't seem to be enough left to constitute two more books + one audio only book - but it was a nice feeling to find myself truly enjoying one of these books again.