We are back again with our Pretty Little Liars. And we have quite a few things to unpack so let’s get down to business shall we?

First off, Aria. Her drama didn’t really add anything to the main story so we can talk about it briefly. Basically, Ezra comes back. Yeah I know. I thought we were done with him but no, Aria sends him an email saying she misses him and next thing you know, he’s back in Rosewood.

He is still his old creepy self and it turns out while he and aria were apart he has written a book about her! And instead of Aria finding this really inappropriate and weird she loves it and thinks it’s romantic. Ugh. I admit it’s only marginally less creepy than in the TV show because at least he didn’t know Aria was a minor when they met and wasn’t obsessed with her because of Alison. But even then…a teacher writing a love story about his student is crossing so many lines.

It’s kind of brushed off as no big deal though because when Aria says she has some criticisms about it, Ezra turns into a whiny defensive baby and won’t listen to her. So there’s that.

Plus when Ezra suggests the idea of Aria introducing him to everyone as her boyfriend he doesn’t see any problem with it. Like yeah okay he’s not her teacher anymore but everyone in Rosewood knows he used to be. He doesn’t see anything wrong with the situation yet Aria sees some sense to it and doesn’t think it’s a good idea.

Again Ezra gets pissy about this with Aria and so they break up lol. Good riddance. Not to mention Ezra ends up making out with Klaudia, the Finnish exchange student who Aria accidentally pushed off a ski lift lol. Looks like Ezra will always be a creeper hitting on minors. Well it’s stated Aria is eighteen in this book but even then that doesn’t really make it okay.

And at the end of all that Aria and Noel get back together. So really Aria’s storyline amounted to nothing. Boring.

Hanna’s story is also in the love department as she starts a romance with the son of her dad’s political enemy. It’s supposed to be romantic and all star crossed lovers until Hanna sees a news article about him being a serial dater. Yawn. To get back at him she decides to tell her dad the drama she found out from the guy she was seeing. Oops. That’ll teach him not to mess with Hanna.

Didn’t get to see the fallout of what her dad will do with the information but I imagine it’s coming. So I guess we sit tight and see. Kate doesn’t even use this information against Hanna because apparently she’s been cheated on before too so I guess that’s nice?

Then there is Spencer and Emily. They are tied together this time around because of one girl. Kelsey.

In this book we find out that Spencer had spent the summer on some pills trying to ace her AP classes to get into Princeton. Her and her friend Kelsey got hooked on them and while all of Spencer’s other friends thought it was a bad idea, she didn’t listen.

Unluckily for Spencer, the girls get caught by the police with the pills and so Spencer decides to save her ass by getting Hanna to plant the drugs in Kelsey’s room and pin the whole thing on her. Harsh.

Spencer thought she was free from that whole situation and that she was getting into Princeton early admission. Only she gets a letter to say that there was a mix up and they accidentally accepted two people with her name and now she needs to work extra hard to secure her place.

This sends Spencer into a whole guilt trip frenzy as she channels her guilt of what she did to Kelsey into her performance of Lady McBeth. All for her to find out that A was messing with her. Cool.

Another reason Spencer was spiralling is because Kelsey reappeared in her life after leaving juvie. She is back at school and working on some orchestra thing with Amelia, Spencer’s step sister to be, so Spencer is constantly on edge. She also believes that Kelsey is A, especially after stealing her phone and finding out that she was in Jamaica that spring break. So she thinks Kelsey saw what happened, figured out Spencer is why she went to juvie and is out for revenge.

It’s a bit far fetched considering the other girls weren’t really involved in the drug bust, well Hanna was but how was Kelsey meant to know? But at the same time it makes more sense than other A theories that floated about on the TV show.

Spencer tells the girls her theory and shows them a picture of Kelsey to be on the lookout and this is when Emily discovers she knows her.

Emily ended up going to a party and meeting Kelsey. The two hit it off right away and were having a good time and it looked like Kelsey could have been Emily’s new love interest. It turns out Emily has a thing for bold women who are a little daring and a little dangerous. Who knew?

But then Spencer and Emily fight about Emily spending time with Kelsey and then Emily ends up telling Kelsey that Spencer is the one that turned her in for the drugs and sent her to juvie. Uh oh.

Spencer then gets a text from A which contains a photo of Tabitha on the beach in Jamaica the night that Aria pushed her and she thinks Kelsey is the one that sent it. Especially when she runs into Kelsey and she asks Spencer if she got her text, this leads to Spencer attacking Kelsey making her look like a psycho.

This then sends Kelsey off the rails and she drives Emily out to the quarry – the same one where Mona tried to kill Spencer – and it looks like Kelsey is trying to kill Emily in the same way…until it is revealed that Kelsey is trying to kill herself?

So the girls theory about her being A is wrong. Naturally I didn’t think Kelsey was A but the girls did have every right to believe that she was. Turns out that Kelsey ended up relapsing on drugs after finding out Emily was friends with Spencer and was mad at her for keeping a secret. Things spiralled out of control for her when she found out that Spencer sent her away to juvie. But the girls ended up saving Kelsey’s life and she wrote them apology letters for what happened.

Kelsey ends up being put into the Preserve, the same institution where Courtney/Alison once stayed and that Hanna also had a stint in. They also discover that Tabitha went there too…so many coincidences. And of course A is still around so it’s not going to be that easy to get rid of her.

And that is where we end things. Naturally it got a bit dramatic at the end but I think it was lacking something for me, I guess I just wasn’t convinced that Kelsey would suddenly be so sucidial? It seemed out of left field for me but yeah.

Oh! And also they keep mentioning Aria doing something unspeakable in Iceland and I hope we find out that soon. I also feel like there’s more to the Emily pregnancy story that we are missing. She can’t just give up a baby at sixteen and go back to life like nothing happened, especially not with A around…so yeah lots of mysteries still be to revealed. Fingers crossed they are good reveals because I’ve been enjoying them so far.