rachel_kw 's review for:

Wanted by Sara Shepard

3.0

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here is an updated version of my review:
8/28/21

These books are ICONIC, constantly name-dropping brands every other word I love it. One might even dare to call it camp!!

This and Vicious are THE pll books to beat. This is so iconic

Spoiler

Ali is a freaking evil genius, what an iconic villain

9/12/20 MEGA SPOILER review

the best thing about re-reading this series is reading all the reviews because they are all fucking hilarious. All of these books have moments of cringe but thankfully I know where they are so I can skip past them.

I don't really like how in every book there's a new suspect for who could be the murderer/A, like this time it's Melissa. What has Melissa ever done to you? And Melissa's acting weird in this book which makes the girls think she's the killer. No, she's not! And then in the last book, it was Spencer's mom, haha no❤️. However, it's revealed in this book that the villain all along(aka the last four books) and Ali's murderer has been..........dun dun dun, her evil twin! I actually don't mind this twist bc it answers a lot of questions that have been cropping up in the books so far. And Real Ali is pretty threatening, she killed Ian Thomas and lugged his rotting corpse around, that's pretty fucked up.

I'm not really sure how to feel about Emily like she's so obsessed with Ali and Ali being alive. Ali is a majority of what she thinks about, and yeah I get it but to a point. I know her best friend/crush was murdered but the way but sometimes it feels like Emily is playing into an obsessive lesbian* stereotype.

I wish the book series ended here, don't get me wrong they are parts of the next eight books I like. I really like the last one and I like Jordan(Bury Your Gays!) but it takes it sweet time getting to a satisfying conclusion.

One thing I noticed when reading is that Emily is drinking while pregnant, to be far she doesn't know she's pregnant**(and I suspect that Sara Shepard didn't know either) but still, it's disturbing plus she's 17! Not to go off on a very specific rant but here are all the pregnancy symptoms Emily should have been experiencing by the Valentine's Day Dance. Just to establish, I looked up a 2010 (Wicked was published that year) calendar so that I would have something to go off of and I guesstimated Emily got pregnant sometime after Christmas cause there's no mention of Christmas in the books but not that far into January bc she had the baby in the summer before she went back to school. Okay now here are all the symptoms Emily should have been experiencing,

-mild cramping and spotting
-missed period
-fatigue
-nausea
-aching breasts
-frequent urination
-bloating
-motion sickness
-mood swings
-temperature swings

This just really annoyed me, I don't think Sarah Shepard planned for the series to continue but if you're looking at it in-universe wise then Emily should have been experiencing symptoms.


I really want Hanna to address all the problems she has with trying to be #1 and her mental problems. Have we all forgotten her best friend ran her over with a car and physiologically tortured her for months?

Aria is fine in this book, I liked her because of how long she resisted Ali's ploys for friendship as opposed to the others who all fell in. Personally I think Spencer should've resited for longer as well because she's been established to be no-nonsense and level-headed. It makes sense that Hanna and Emily accepted it as fast as they did bc they were the ones who talked about wanting Ali back the most. This could've created a cool dynamic where the friends are split(pro Ali vs no Ali) and it would've paired them off in interesting ways. Aria and Spencer are so different so it would've been interesting to see them agree on something.

I'm really glad Spencer and Melissa made up in this book, they were friends for a bit in the last couple books but this time it seemed real and lasting. I didn't like how fast Spencer was to jump at the conclusion that Melissa was the who stalked them that night and thinking that she did something to Ali, old habits die hard I guess. I don't understand why Melissa was portrayed with such a bad vibe in this book, I know she was a red herring but I mean running at night through creepy murder woods, stalking Courtney/Ali, getting into separate arguments with Wilden and Jason, come on! And what are the odds all the girls saw Melissa doing sus stuff?

I don't know if I'm just forgetting but when this book wrapped up all the plot threads did it mention that Billy Ford was let off? Maybe it just happened off-screen but the girls know Billy Ford did absolutely nothing to them, so hopefully, they got him out.

*Emily starts out the books thinking she's a lesbian and then when she meets Isaac, she's like wait.....but I'm a lesbian how can I like him? Emily, girl, sexuality is fluid. It also bothers me that the author mentions terms like bisexual but then doesn't really define Emily as that and continues to use lesbian and straight. It gave me flashbacks to BTVS and how they didn't use the word bisexual to describe Willow, just "oh, guess I'm a lesbian now."

**This just annoys me bc Emily gets pregnant after having sex for the first time, like really? I guess we're doing this stupid trope