Category: Reviews

For You And Only You by Caroline Kepnes Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

It is time to dive in to the 4th book in the Joe Goldberg series. This is the first time that the TV show season has aired before the book has come out and I definitely watched season 4 of You before reading this so naturally I had to wonder how different or similar they were going to be.

So far the TV show has been following the books kind of close. All the same players are there, things are just different. I’d say book one and two and seasons one and two are very similar, season three we veer off a little but it’s fine, both are still good and entertaining. Season four of You and this book, are different in almost every way. The characters are completely different and Joe is in a whole other country for the TV show lol.

That’s not to say I wasn’t guessing what was going to happen in this book because I was. I thought maybe the TV show was reflecting what would happen in the book, just that the book wasn’t published yet. Wrong. But that’s what made me want to keep reading, it would have been boring if the same twists from the TV show had been here.

So in this book, Joe is starting off in a writing fellowship at Harvard. Quite a leap from where we last left him, I barely remembered where we left him but we left him heading out to Florida where he started a new life and opened the dream bookstore that Mary Kay had always wanted.

Turns out the pandemic hit Joe’s world too and during that time he wrote a book and he decided to pursue getting it published and the only way to do that is to suck up to another writer which brings Joe to Harvard. He is currently kissing the ass of Glenn Shoddy who wrote Scabies for Breakfast. Lovely title.

But on the first day of the fellowship Joe finds love, naturally. This time in the form of Wonder Parish. Ugh. I hate her name, Wonder like I think I hate it more than Love Quinn if only because I shudder every time I have to read Joe say “Won”. Like it’s not for me. But anyway, Joe thinks this will be his most epic love yet because Wonder is a writer just like him and their going to be this writer power couple and it’ll be great.

The first hurdle that comes Joe’s way is that Wonder has a bestie called Bobby and you know what happens to a potential male love interest in this series lol. They get the axe. Except, Joe’s not on his murder shit anymore, he’s done with that, but not in an obvious way like in the last book where he was actively thinking he was reformed. He’s just not always immediately thinking “this douche has to die”.

He does however think it would be convenient of Bobby took a little trip and fall down the stairs, after all accidents happen. So you know, things go according to Joe’s plan until he finds out that Bobby is actually gay and that he’s made a horrible mistake lol. Did not see that one coming for him to be honest, but he manages to call the authorities in time and all is well. Bobby is saved, he doesn’t even suspect Joe of his attempted murder and all is well.

Except, it’s not going that well. Joe has been spending a lot of time sucking up to Glenn. He even takes up cycling so he can bond more with his mentor. Though he grows tired of this quickly, especially when he discovers that Glenn didn’t even write that book he’s so proud of. Yikes.

Turns out that Glenn has been the front man for a book that his wife, Sly, wrote. She tells Joe this in a ‘cone of silence’ and Joe is dying to tell Wonder but he doesn’t, he keeps it to himself. He realises the person he really needs to impress is Sly but Sly is all about Wonder, which is good because that means Wonder will get published but bad because Joe has to prove himself to her now.

Honestly when Sly revealed that she was the mastermind behind Scabies I was hoping this was when Joe realises he should be with Sly. I was waiting for this to go the way of the TV show where Joe and Kate get together and become a rich power couple. But nope. Didn’t happen.

Instead, what ends up happening is Glenn tearing Wonder apart during her workshop which sends Wonder off a ledge where she wants to quit writing. This is bad for Joe since it ruins his picture perfect life he’d planned out with Wonder. Joe knows deep down that Wonder is a writer and she needs support if she’s ever going to finish her book and the only way for that to happen is if they get another mentor.

So Joe decides it’s time for Glenn to go…go off a cliff lol. This is where all his cycling with Glenn comes in handy, he lures Glenn onto a trail with the premise of beating Joe’s personal best and all he needed was a bit of fishing wire in the right place to make Glenn go bye bye. Not even sad about it to be honest, he was annoying. Though I don’t think I’ve ever really been sad over anyone that Joe’s killed.

So with Glenn gone, Sly is up to bat. She becomes the new leader of the fellowship which is great news for Wonder because she is back in the game and with all the praise she is getting from Sly and her fellows she is more enthused about writing than ever.

Joe on the other hand is struggling, he made contact with Glenn’s agent at the funeral and he sent Sly a copy of his book. But Sly has been keeping quiet about his book, not mentioning anything to him until he reaches out, and when he does she showers him with praise to give him a little ego boost. How nice!

On top of this Joe is battling with another one of the fellows in class because she has figured him out. There was a murder podcast that popped up about the death of one of Joe’s victims in Madre Linda and everyone in class was talking about it. Sarah Beth, the fellow who is known for writing murder mysteries, is on the case and suspects that Joe is the killer. Oof. Not good.

So Joe tries to break into Sarah Beth’s “dead shed”, a place she goes to write, to try to find what she has on him and in doing so he triggers a knockout gas and gets tied up by Sarah Beth. And even worse, she’s gotten him to confess to everything. The deaths in Madre Linda, his murders in LA, all the way back to Beck. He just spills his guts, and this has me shook because I didn’t think he would ever confess to anything. But he hopes this is enough to let Sarah Beth let him go and she does. But she now has tapes of him confessing to a hell of a lot of murders…

Luckily for Joe, it seems like all Sarah Beth wants is a good novel so she is using Joe’s tapes as inspo. She also hints at him to kill her ex boyfriend? Which is crazy but thankfully Joe doesn’t do it because he stands by the fact he’s not actually a murderer. Especially not a hit man for hire. Though Sarah Beth hits him back with a “JK I didn’t think you actually would kill him”. But it’s not like she’d be mad if he did.

Anyway yeah that was a weird stint because I thought it was going to go somewhere but it doesn’t really. At first I was wondering if this was like Joe in the TV show hallucinating that someone had found out his secret but then he had too many public interactions with Sarah Beth to know, plus with her husband so I don’t think he could have made it up. But maybe he did? Either way it’s not like he’s blacking out and not remembering murdering people. There’s been surprisingly few murders in this one lol.

So while Joe has been appeasing Sarah Beth, he has been at risk of losing Wonder, and he basically does when he accuses her of plagiarizing his book. He sent his book to Wonder in the hopes she would read it but she claimed she was “too busy” with her book to even start his but when Joe reads her pages for class he sees she’s stolen one of his metaphors. Wonder claims she didn’t and that she was inspired by an old book that she read to her niece but Joe isn’t buying it. This causes Wonder to fly off the handle at him and disappear for a few days.

Naturally, Joe thinks he can handle it but he can’t, he has to know where Wonder went. At first he thinks that maybe Sarah Beth had something to do with it. Joe did try to steal his tapes back from her and he failed and so he wonders if she took Wonder as payback. But no luck, Sarah Beth doesn’t know where she is.

So Joe tries Wonder’s family, he visits all of them to see if he can track her down. And once more, I am wondering if this is like when Joe blacked out and doesn’t remember kidnapping Mary Kay in the TV show. But nope none of that here. Wonder is hiding out in a posh compound that Sly set her up in.

Joe eventually hears back from Glenn’s agent about his book and he’s excited about it only to find out that Sly basically rewrote his manuscript and is trying to sell him as “Joe Erotic” he’s gonna be the next EL James LOL. Naturally Joe is furious and so he breaks into Sly’s house because if she did this to him then he definitely did it to Wonder. Thankfully, Joe has keys to the house from being Glenn’s “bro-tern” and so gains access to Sly’s laptop to see the damage. Why this woman doesn’t have a password on her computer is beyond me but Joe sees that Sly has rewritten Wonder’s book too. He also finds texts between Wonder and Sly where Wonder admits that she stole from his book and that Sly encourages her to get out of town and focus on writing.

This leads Joe to do some serious stalker research – which he’s a pro at by now – and he tracks Wonder down. Instead of being creeped out by this though, Wonder accepts Joe in with open arms. Joe and Wonder have a brief loved up few days living the rich life and writing together. It’s the way Joe always pictured their life and it’s wonderful. Until Sly shows up.

There’s a stand-off between Sly, Joe and Wonder as Wonder wants to fight Sly for what she did with Joe’s book but she has no idea that her work was also butchered because Joe is keeping it a secret. Sly then drops the bombshell on Wonder that she made edits to her book too and Joe knew this whole time. On top of that, Sly also knows that Joe broke into her house because he left his sunglasses there. Oops.

Luckily for Joe, Wonder doesn’t believe he’s the kind of guy to break into someone’s house, but she’s still mad at him for not telling her what Sly did. So things don’t end the best with them.

Cut to Joe basically deciding he has to kill Sly because she’s not doing any favours for him or Wonder. It’s easy for him to kill her off since she’s basically drugged out all the time after Glenn’s death, he just takes her passed out body and drowns her in the hot tub. But not before writing the perfect suicide note.

As Joe is about to make his escape though, he is coming face to face with Wonder and that’s not good, she can’t find Sly’s body just yet. So Joe and Wonder talk and they go through a lot, basically Wonder pointing out Joe’s issues and telling him he’s a shit writer and Joe is furious for her seeing him as he really is and not what he wants her to see. Then Joe getting his digs in at Wonder about how she’s all about her family and too scared to actually live her life. It’s some real shit. Joe even confesses to killing Glenn but Wonder doesn’t believe he would be capable of such a thing lol.

Naturally as all this is going on I am wondering if Joe kills Wonder. I mean it seems like it’s possible, the confrontation is a lot more than Joe would have let someone get away with in the past. But he decides to give Wonder another chance, after they talk he lets Wonder find Sly’s body and he’s holding out hope that if Wonder can appreciate Sly’s suicide note aka Joe’s note that he would forgive her for calling him a shit writer.

Wonder does not appreciate the suicide note and thinks it’s just the thoughts of a crazy grieving woman lol. So that’s the end of that relationship.

Surprisingly though, Joe does not kill Wonder, she lets her go on and her book gets published, though it’s still a heavily edited version of her original vision and Joe is disappointed in her. Though I think he’s still holding out hope that they can be together. Cute. I guess.

He is also still hanging out with Sarah Beth because I guess they’re friends? And you know, she knows he murdered all those people. And so yeah that’s where we end things.

I’m not going to lie, I feel like as the book progressed, more and more things were going over my head. So I was disappointed when Joe didn’t just kill Wonder because you know, that’s what he does. I also am disappointed that nothing from the TV show happened here. I mean I didn’t need it to be exactly the same but in terms of season 4 vs book 4 I would choose season 4.

I also wonder if there will be a book 5 as the TV show is getting a fifth and final season. Not that I have any idea where we go with Joe from here. I guess he goes off and starts fresh somewhere new since that was what he was headed to do when this book ended.

Still, I think I would have preferred if we ended with the last book, to me this story wasn’t 100% needed. I looked back on my review of the last book and I remember that there were a lot of crazy twists there that I didn’t need and was glad to be at the end of it. Though I have to say, I wouldn’t have hated more action in this book, there was a lot of literary talk and that’s great and all but wasn’t for me.

So yeah, overall okay no great. Would have preferred more murder lol. But yeah, guess we buckle up and see what You season 5 will bring, I’m hoping it doesn’t disappoint.

Vicious PLL Book #16 by Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This one was a wild ride from start to finish but do we expect anything less for a finale? I’ll tell you it was way more interesting than the TV show final season.

So the girls start off on trial for Alison’s murder, they fell right into Alison’s trap and are paying the consequences but it’s not looking good for them. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time and painting themselves in a bad light.

They decide before the trial starts to go to Nick in prison to see if they can get him to share any information on Alison and where she might go because we all know she’s still alive. Nick doesn’t want to crack at first but Emily pushes him and he mentions something about his grandmother’s old house in Cape May. Bingo. The girls go on the hunt.

Sadly for them, Alison escapes them once again as they show up at the beach house and it’s empty. No traces of Alison but the scent of that God damn vanilla soap that’s mentioned every five minutes. So the girls accept their fate, they’re going to prison because the only sure way they were going to get out was if they found Alison and proved she was alive.

So for their last night of freedom, the girls decide they might as well stay in Cape May and enjoy their time. I mean they’d already broken the terms of their bail by leaving the state so why not? Though the whole time the girls are having fun in the sun, something is niggling away at Emily and she can’t handle it any longer.

Spencer awakes in the night to find Emily missing and a suicide note in the hotel room. Uh oh. She races out to the beach where she can see Emily being swept away by the current. Spencer tries to rescue Emily but the storm is too strong and she is unable to. Which leads us to believe that Emily has drowned.

I don’t believe this for a second because it’s the last book and there is no way that one of the girls ends up dead now. They’ve been through far too much. I had a feeling maybe Alison got to her or something but I couldn’t be quite sure until the end.

So while the girls are grieving the loss of their friend, they also have to prepare to go trial for murder. It’s not a good time for any of them and Aria even decides to flee to Europe. Which is ballsy of her because I didn’t think she would scare off so easily.

Aria’s Europe adventure is short-lived, she travels to Paris and then from there heads out to Amsterdam where she runs into Noel of all people – apparently he had a feeling she would run away and she had mentioned going to Europe before so he thought he would follow her. Some would say romantic but I would say he’s crazy for helping a fugitive lol. But doesn’t matter because they both end up getting caught in the end and being sent back to Rosewood.

Meanwhile, Spencer and Hanna have been facing the trial alone, they had a big fight at Emily’s funeral so aren’t even speaking so it’s been pretty icy in the court room but things are not going in their favour. I mean, it seemed unlikely things would turn out okay for them when there’s so much evidence against them.

Outside of the courtroom, Hanna and Mike have been planning a wedding which is insane to me but Mike proposed to Hanna and said he would wait for her so they were looking to tie the knot before the verdict was decided. It might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard but I gotta give props to both their families for agreeing to let it happen and for them to see it through in the end. With all the crap Hanna has had to go through over the last few years she deserved to have her fairytale wedding.

As for Spencer, she also considered fleeing the country and she was going to pay off someone to help her get a fake ID to do it but she decides in the end that she couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t imagine going off the grid and never seeing her friends again, plus she has reconnected with Wren of all people? And she wants to see where that goes. I still think Wren is a creeper but he was Spencer’s doctor after they rescued her from the storm after trying to save Emily and for some reason Wren was still hung up on Spencer and so yeah that’s a thing.

After the high of Hanna’s wedding the girls get pulled into the courtroom as the jury has decided on a verdict and surprise, surprise the girls are found: guilty.

I am not gonna lie, I was a little hopeful for them after their lawyer tried to get the truth out of Nick when he was called onto the stand but I guess that wasn’t enough to convince the jury the girls were innocent. I mean at this point, the media and everyone was calling for the girls to be found guilty it was going to be hard for them to prove their innocence.

So the girls go to prison, but at this point we are only halfway through the book so we have to know there’s more to the story right? Correct.

The girls are only in prison for five minutes because then they are called back to the courtroom as a surprise witness has just made an appearance: Emily. She’s not dead! Though we knew that.

Turns out she faked her death to track down Alison. She went back to the beach house and found an envelope with an address on it so she decided to see it through. And it turns out that she did track down Ali! Turns out her mother had been hiding her this whole time. Which I guess makes sense, Jessica hid CeCe for a while in the TV show and she seems like the kind of person who would do anything for her children. Even if they are psychotic.

So Ali gets sent to prison and the girls are free! Yay! And everyone lives happily ever after. Aria gets back with Noel and is able to sell her paintings and live her best life, Hanna stars in the movie about her life and gets into Parsons, Spencer decides to take a gap year and her book deal is back on and Emily is just trying to find herself and discover who she is without being tied down to her family.

And as always Alison is still planning revenge even from behind bars, she’s manipulated people from a psychiatric facility before and she can do it again. We love that for her.

And so there we have it! 16 books later and we are done! Well not quite, there are a couple of companion books which I’ll probably read too but will not do blog posts on them. I actually started Pretty Little Secrets directly after this one lol. Even though I should have read it forever ago considering the placement of it is right after Mona being A and Alison replacing her but it’s fine.

The point is we made it to the end of this series! And I am so proud of myself lol. 16 books is A LOT and I definitely could have given up at any point but I held on to this rollercoaster journey ’til the end. Will I take on another book series? Probably, there’s always one and it makes it easier to find what to read next if it’s a series but in the meantime I’m going to finish up this side book, and start reading all the other books I bought last year and still have not read lol.

Thanks for joining me on this PLL journey if you did, it’s been a long one. And with it, I think it ends the consistent blogging for a while, which is sad because I liked updating here a lot but I guess I’ll just need more things to write about lol. So yeah be back soon with something, or not. Guess we’ll see.

Toxic PLL Book #15 by Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This one was a long game and you know what? I admire it. Alison really doing the most.

So in this one, the girls try to go back to their normal lives and it kind of works? Well except for Emily, but I wanna save her for last.

First up, we have Hanna who was approached because they are making another movie about the liars lol. They made one back when Mona was A and it was a bad made for TV movie. This time, it’s a big production and they want Hanna to play the role of Naomi.

Hanna agrees because it’s Hanna and she’s always wanted to be a big star. She becomes fast friends with Hailey is playing her in the movie.

Long story short, Hailey is awful at playing Hanna and is a terrible actress in general and so she quits the movie. This allows Hanna to swoop in and take the part because ya know, who better to play Hanna Marin than Hanna Marin.

Hailey finds out and gets angry at Hanna so leaks this photo of her kissing a costar to the tabloids causing Mike to break up with her. Fun.

It all works out in the end though because Hailey realises that she was being a terrible actress and doesn’t blame Hanna for going after the part. They make up and Hailey even gets Hanna back together with Mike. Yay!

Next we gave Aria who is a best selling artist? Some big art hot shot decides to buy one of her paintings for $100,000 which sounds very suspicious considering she’s never had anyone see her paintings before.

People hear about this and it makes Aria an overnight sensation in the art world with people reaching out for art shows and paintings. Aria even starts a little romance with an art blogger.

This all fizzles out for 5 minutes when someone from the New York Times calls Aria and asked why she posed as this big art guy to buy her own painting and Aria freaks out. She figures out that Alison must be behind this, especially when the painting that sold was of Alison and the name on the bank transfer was Maxine Peptwill which was her alias when she was hanging out with Noel.

I say it only lasts 5 minutes because the next day, everyone is still dying to get their hands on a painting for Aria. It seems the bad press wasn’t all bad.

Oh and she gets back together with Noel lol. Shocker.

As for Spencer, she has started a blog for people to share their bullying experiences. She really connects with some guy called Greg, who she becomes friends with. While at the same time she’s getting horrible emails from a guy called Dominic who is basically calling her a fraud.

Spencer’s blog gets some media attention and she is invited to tape an anti bullying discussion where she talks about her experiences. In this taping she comes into contact with Greg and Dominic. Dominic calls her out in front of everyone and gets escorted off the premises.

Greg ends up hanging around at the end and speaks to Spencer in person. They instantly connect and Spencer ends up telling Greg that the girls are still being tormented by Alison.

Cut to later on and Spencer finds out Greg has actually been an Ali Cat all along. Ali Cats are a group of Alison groupies who believe she is still alive and they all admire her and want to serve her. Which is creepy and I’m wondering how Alison managed to drum up a fansite in her spare time lol.

Anyway, Greg admits to Spencer that he was only getting close to her to find out things about Alison. And of course he vanishes before Spencer can ask any real questions.

But all is kind of okay because she gets a book deal based on her blog lol.

Finally we have Emily and she is having the most tragic time and I feel awful for her like just when things seem to be getting better for her they end in disaster.

Basically, Emily hears from Jordon in prison and goes out to visit her. It seems like Jordon is just as in love with Emily as she is with her so it’s all wonderful. Jordon even says there’s a chance that she could get out of jail early and they could be together.

The hope lasts for about 5 minutes because Jordon ends up dead. Yeah, Alison used her connection of Ali Cats to murder Jordon in prison. What the fuck??

To make things worse for Emily, she was also attacked by Alison at the school swimming pool. She had to attend summer school classes and while she was leaving one day she saw the pool was empty so decided to swim some laps, because she’s alone Alison found her and tried to drown her, demanding Emily to say she still loved her. Emily tries to fight back and say she would never say that again. When Alison seems to let up, Emily gets out of the pool and chase after her but she gets away.

Emily did manage to get a hoodie off of her, though when the girls hand the hoodie into the police, Fuji says they are unable to find any DNA on it. Though the girls did find a receipt in it for a minimart so they go snooping to see if Alison might be hiding out around there.

They come up at a dead end at the minimart, though the cashier did mention something about a blonde buying water. Naturally, she’s revealed too much so Alison says she’s gotta go. She ends up dying lol. Alison really be out here taking everyone down to get revenge on these four girls and it’s wild.

This does not deter Emily though as she decides to look up properties that Nick’s family owns to see if Alison is hiding out in any of them, one of the properties is near the minimart. Coincidence? Emily doesn’t think so, she convinces the girls that they need to stake the place out, so they buy cameras and set them up around the pool house at the back of the property as it seems the most likely place Alison would hide out.

For a while, nothing comes from the cameras, until the night that Spencer finds out that Greg was an Ali Cat. She confesses to him about the cameras and he says she just told him everything he needed to know. At the same time, Emily discovers that one of the cameras has been playing on a loop for ages so naturally the girls head to the pool house.

Now this is where I think they were being dumb. I mean they’ve done dumb things before but this one I just can’t believe even happened – I don’t even think they were this dumb on the TV show lol. But they get to the pool house, they see the that the inside looks different and there’s blood everywhere. They then go upstairs and see a dress which is covered in blood, which then Aria LIFTS and takes with them. But like not even carefully just grabs it and takes it because she thinks Alison’s DNA is on it but also in turn leaving her DNA on it…not smart.

But while the girls are upstairs they hear someone come into the house, sounds like they are cleaning up and they are too scared to go downstairs in case Alison is there. They didn’t really think it through when they were going to ambush her, I mean they came in their fancy dresses from the gala they were meant to be at and didn’t exactly want to call the police after all the drama they caused them before…

So they high tail it out of the place and decide to call the police anonymously. Yeah that’ll be fine, they’ll find the blood and figure Alison had killed someone right? Spencer even gets an alert about a body being found behind the minimart the girls had been at. She figured it was Greg after he revealed to her he knew Alison was alive from before.

Next thing you know, Fuji is showing up at Emily’s to arrest all of the girls. Shocker. They find out that all the blood in the pool house actually belonged to Alison, including a missing tooth. Damn. Plus, the girls’ fingerprints were all over the pool house and they even found their security cameras, Fuji even spies the dress that Aria had kept which she took from the pool house. Yeah. Dumb moves girlies.

Plus on the security cameras they found footage of Emily going off the rails and wrecking the pool house and threatening to kill someone. She was having a bad day and tried to clean it up but it clearly doesn’t look well for anyone. Well except Alison, the police now believe she was alive but the girls killed her. If she wasn’t able to kill them I guess going to jail for her murder is a close second in terms of revenge.

And that is where we leave the Pretty Little Liars in the second to last book, and honestly? I’m living for it. I guess I can see why the girls didn’t think they were making stupid moves when they hoped to come face to face with Alison, at the same time they knew she was dangerous so they should have had a better plan than to just show up and see what the craic was.

I am interested to see how this all ends and I really hope we get more information on Alison and how she survived and orchestrated this whole thing because I love a good villain story. So bring it on! One more book to go!

Deadly PLL Book #14 by Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This one was so good. There was so much suspense and the pace was just right and I could not put it down.

So in this one, shit hits the fan. I mean is there any other way to say it?

The book starts out with the girls dealing with the fallout of what happened to Noel. Aria tries to find out if Noel knew more than he’s letting on, or maybe if she can figure out something else about Alison from the things Noel tells her but it ends up being a dead end. Noel said he had wanted to tell Aria about his friendship with Alison before but he didn’t know how to tell her and I guess they break up? I don’t think it’s said in so many words but it’s kind of just an understanding between them.

Meanwhile Mike confronts Hanna about everything that has been going on and guesses A is back, Hanna breaks down and tells him the truth. He wants to help catch Alison but Hanna doesn’t want him to get involved in case he gets hurt like Noel did. Not going to lie, this is kind of useless since Mike knowing didn’t serve any purpose in this book lol.

Spencer and Chase decide to check out the house from the surveillance photos of Alison that Chase had gotten before but it turns out to be a dead end – shocker. When has anything that has just fallen into the girls’ laps ever panned out?

Next thing you know everyone is being arrested lol. Yay. Looks like Alison got bored and decided to tip the police off about all their secrets. Spencer’s easy A drug habit, Hanna’s drunk driving, Aria’s painting thieving and Emily being in contact with Jordan who is a fugitive.

This is when the girls finally decide to break down and tell Agent Fuji about Alison and A and everything else going on in their lives. They hope that Agent Fuji will look past their crimes if it means them co-operating with the new investigation of finding Alison. They tell her about the notes they’ve been receiving, what happened to Tabitha in Jamaica, the whole nine yards. Agent Fuji agrees to help them and even gives them security detail to keep them safe in the meantime. Looks like things might actually be going their way for once.

Some time passes and nothing comes from Agent Fuji though Spencer is constantly calling for updates because she wants to know if there’s been any progress from the investigation. The girls have also been forwarding on any new messages from A they receive to Fuji. Each time the girls contact Fuji she always says the same thing, just that she is looking into things and let her do her job basically haha.

Unfortunately for the girls, Fuji does do her job and the girls end up being arrested again haha. This time for the murder of Tabitha Clark. Yikes. Fuji says that they were able to trace back all the A messages to the girls’ phones, implying they sent them to each other. She also says that the only DNA found on any physical note given to the girls by A was theirs. It’s not looking good for them.

Even worse than that evidence is that Fuji got security footage from a nearby hotel in Jamaica which shows the girls beating Tabitha to death…it’s hard to dispute that when the evidence is right in front of them.

I mean we all know that Alison is smart and worked hard to get the evidence to work in her favour, including creating a fake video of the girls and sending it to the FBI but Fuji and everyone else don’t believe them.

Thankfully though the girls don’t have to stay in jail while they await their trial as Spencer’s dad comes to the rescue and is able to get them out on bail. I guess this is nice and it’s nice to hear about Spencer’s dad, he’s been AWOL since Spencer’s mom dumped him after finding out about the Jessica DiLaurentis affair. But glad to see he is defending his daughter even if she is accused of murder.

The verdict is that the girls are guilty AF and will be sent to Jamaica for the trial which obviously doesn’t look good to the liars. Who wants to be kicked out of their hometown and their country to be trialed for a murder they didn’t commit in a foreign country?

No one is having a harder time with this than Emily, her family refuse to speak to her all of them believing she’s a liar and a murderer. Her sister calling her out for all her crap, refusing to take responsibility for her actions including her pregnancy which her sister helped her with last year. So Emily and her sister end up fighting which in turn causes Emily’s mum to have a heart attack?! Yeah I was not expecting that one.

Naturally her whole family blames her for this and refuse to acknowledge her as a person. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t kick her out of the house, they clearly care to some degree though since they were selling their possessions to get Emily out on bail.

Still, you can’t help but feel bad for the girl, she’s being tormented by the twin of a girl she loved, she had a teen pregnancy and is now being framed for murder and no one even believes her. Not to mention, A has been sending anonymous letters to all the loved ones the girls know implying they are going to commit suicide.

Emily concludes that this must be the only option since it’s what A wants, and she thinks her family would be better off if she wasn’t around to burden them.

Next thing you know, Spencer, Hanna and Aria are rushing to talk Emily off a ledge, literally. Like I’m sitting on the edge of my seat shook because I didn’t think Emily was really going to do it. I mean sure A pushed them to the brink but like despite everything I thought she would be strong.

Thankfully the girls get there and Emily doesn’t jump off the bridge, and the girls decide to go after Alison one last time. Might as well do everything they can to catch her before they get shipped out to Jamaica.

Aria decides to go back to Noel because she thinks there’s maybe something else he can do to help them. She asked him how he was able to contact her when she was out of the Preserve. Noel says there was a website he would go to and he would put in a fake order with a time and a place in the order notes of where he wanted to meet Alison. So they make a plan together to set up a trap with Alison.

Naturally, the plan does not work as Alison catches on and sends a decoy blonde to the meeting spot. The girls really thought they’d had her but as always she was one step ahead.

Cut to the day later when the girls might have figured out where Alison’s hiding spot might really be. Earlier in the book, Emily had received a voicemail from Alison and she was laughing but in the background they could hear some kind of chant. Hanna figured out the chant was from the protesters that had been all around Rosewood since Noel had been beaten up. The day Alison called, Hanna had been at her dad’s office and that’s where the protesters had been so the girls had another shot at finding Alison.

They go to where Tom Marin’s offices are and begin to look around, this is when they see that next to the office there is a rundown little building so they go and investigate. This is when they finally come face to face with Alison’s helper. Except it’s not who they were expecting, it is also no one that we know.

Alison’s helper is called Nick but to Emily he was Derek, the best friend she made the summer she was pregnant. To Spencer, it was Phineas the guy who sold her Easy A when she was in Philly. To Hanna, he was the bartender that was serving drinks the night she was run off the road. And to Aria, and the most surprising to me, he was Olaf, the guy who helped her steal the painting in Iceland. Damn. He’s been sneaky.

Alison soon appears next Nick and they both usher the girls into the basement of the rundown house they are in, inside they find a room with an Ali shrine in it, photos of her plastered along the walls. Emily smells something sweet in the air and realises they are being poisoned. Alison says she’s laid it all out perfectly to stage their suicide and is acting like a psycho. Though we all knew she was.

Also since the fire, Alison doesn’t look like the girl everyone knew and loved. Her skin is scarred from the fire, she’s missing a tooth and is looking worse for wear. I feel like this adds to how deranged she has become trying to get her revenge on these girls.

Emily, being the only one of the girls who seem to have any fight in her despite all of them being poisoned, tries to confront Alison and get her to release them but she’s not super successful.

Thankfully this is the one time the police were tracking the girls and they were able to come in and rescue them. Of course, Alison has vanished but Nick is lying unconscious on the ground so guess who is taking the blame for being A and killing Tabitha?

The girls get the charges against them dropped and are free to live their lives but can things really go back to normal when they know that Alison is still out there somewhere?

And that’s where we leave things. And I was honestly shocked that Nick was actually all of those people to the girls. I mean I had a feeling that he was someone always in the background lurking, I actually thought he might have been the cruise ship director guy they kept mentioning that time but then it was never brought up again. Though that would have been a role that was too obvious for him to be in if the girls all knew him in different contexts.

I was also amazed that Alison had even thought to create a fake video framing the girls for Tabitha’s murder like wow, we love a villain who is always thinking ahead, so much so that she had the backup plan to frame Nick if it all went wrong. Though we knew she would always throw her accomplice under the bus if it came to it.

I’m just surprised she got away before the police could find her. Not even a hair, fingerprint or anything that the police could trace back to her it’s wild.

But things are heating up and we only have two books left and I’m dying to know how it ends, I’m really hoping the girls can get more confrontation with Alison but will it happen? Probably not, not if she has anything to say about it.

American Royals: Rivals by Katharine McGee Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been waiting for this one and it did not disappoint.

In this book, Beatrice is set to run her first League of Kings conference – it is her first big event as Queen and all eyes are on her to make sure she doesn’t fuck it up. Let’s just say things don’t go exactly as planned for her, though she does make some friends.

Basically, the League of Kings conference is a big event where royalty all around the world get together and discuss important issues but also they just kind of party and live their best wealthy lives. Super fun.

I honestly feel bad for Beatrice, she is always struggling with being Queen and it hasn’t exactly been going well for her. Especially when she is trying to find a place for Teddy to fit into all of this, Teddy is her King consort to be but because America has never had a King consort before, they need to find something for him to do.

On top of that, Beatrice is also trying to win over everyone at the conference to vote for her climate change accord, it was something her father had pushed before and she wanted to see it through. That doesn’t really work out for her either, at least not initially. Once she kind of stands up for herself and takes command she is able to get people to reconsider, not without the help of a new possible friendship with Louise, Princess of France.

Meanwhile down at King’s College, Nina is making friends with Daphne? I know who would have thought? But it turns out they share a common enemy, Gabriella. The girls are convinced that Gabriella is the reason why Nina’s financial aid gets revoked after Nina makes some nasty comments about her. Gabriella’s father is also the reason why Daphne’s family is at risk of losing their baronetcy and if they do then Daphne will be nothing but a commoner. Ouch.

So the girls team up to take down Gabriella and they thought they would be able to do it, and honestly they had me fooled too. I thought they could do it.

Sadly for them, the dirt they had on Gabriella was really nothing and Daphne’s family ended up losing their title. Luckily for Nina though, good old Prince Jefferson noticed something was up with her financial aid and looked into it and had it reinstated so Nina lucked out.

Speaking of Prince Jefferson, he and Daphne are back together but Nina and Jeff have been getting close again. Yikes.

So the friendship with Daphne and Nina doesn’t last long especially when Jeff says to Nina that Daphne has been acting weird lately and then kisses Nina. Naturally, Daphne sees this and is furious. She thinks Nina double-crossed her and was working with Gabriella this whole time and now she was taking Jeff from her again.

This leads Daphne to pull out all the stops to prevent Jefferson to break up with her, so she pretends to be pregnant. I mean I saw this coming lol I didn’t know what she was going to do but this is definitely on brand for her. There’s nothing like a pregnancy scare to make someone stay with you, especially in the fictional dramatic world of TV/books. It’s not original but I am excited to see how Daphne plays this one.

Meanwhile, Nina finds out Jeff didn’t break up with Daphne but she doesn’t know the reason, she just figures that Daphne was the one double-crossing her and that she was done competing with her.

Honestly, I am sad that this happened to them, Nina and Daphne would have been a great friendship. I imagine they could have a big confrontation in the next book and possibly be friends again but at the same time would Nina be able to forgive Daphne for pretending she could be pregnant just to keep Jefferson on her hook?

Side note, I feel so bad for Jefferson constantly being in the middle of these two. I mean the main thing is he is just being manipulated by Daphne 24/7 so he can’t just be with a person he actually has feelings for like Nina. I just need him to snap out of it and realise who Daphne really is, he got a glimpse of who she really was this time around I imagine it’s not going to take long for the cracks to continue to show with her.

And then there’s Sam who is trying to choose between her relationship with Marshall, the future duke of Orange, and her duty as heir to the throne. If she and Marshall got married she could only see a future where Marshall would have to give up his dukedom which she didn’t want. And then she realises she could just give up her title instead. Honestly, Sam’s dilemma was not that interesting in comparison to other things going on. If anything it was kind of mirroring what Beatrice and Teddy are going through but it’s more serious for Beatrice as she is the queen.

Sam and Marshall end up running away to Hawaii for a while where they can live as normal people because Hawaii stays separate from everything and doesn’t recognise foreign royalty on its soil. So that’s nice for them.

The book doesn’t end all sunshine and roses though as Beatrice and Teddy’s relationship ends up becoming strained as Teddy feels like Beatrice hasn’t been focusing on and working as much on the relationship as he is. Especially since Teddy has willingly given his all to Beatrice, including his own Dukedom.

Teddy explains to Beatrice after the League of Kings conference ends that he needs some time apart but in true romance movie fashion, Beatrice thinks that’s a terrible idea and asks for a driver to take her to the airport to stop Teddy from taking off. As she is being driven to the airport she gets into a car crash and is left in critical condition. Uh oh. Not a good time for Samantha to renounce her title and run off to Hawaii.

This leaves Jefferson to take on the duty of Acting King which he agrees to do with Daphne at his side. It is in the hospital that Nina is watching this unfold and pieces together that Daphne was only ever looking out for herself and now that Jefferson was going to become the Acting King there was no way she was going to be able to get between them now. That and whatever friendship they had was over.

And that’s where we end things. Honestly, I am not sure where we go from here. Naturally, I don’t want Beatrice to die, the family has already been through enough since their dad passed away not that long ago. Plus, Sam is going to feel awful for leaving town and being unreachable when she finds out about Beatrice.

Daphne will probably do what she always does and stand by Jefferson’s side and gently guide him in his new position as Acting King. I don’t know how everyone will react when they realise Daphne isn’t pregnant and she exaggerated but that’s something I look forward to finding out. And also you know what Nina is going to do if Daphne refuses to let her see Jefferson again…

So yeah, it’s all a mess but I am hooked on the drama. And I just looked it up and the next book is set to be published later this year so sign me up because I am more than ready for more American Royal family drama.

Crushed PLL #13 By Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

In this one, we finally figure out what Aria did in Iceland. Took them long enough. And honestly? Feels kind of out of character for her and I didn’t like it. I mean sure, everyone else’s secret was a bit wild but I don’t know Aria’s wasn’t my favourite.

So while she was in Iceland, she ended up talking to this guy Olaf and he was telling her about this rare Van Gogh painting that some rich person kept to themselves so they decided to steal it.

I guess it is fitting to Aria’s personality but like I couldn’t see her actually stealing something lol. Anyway yeah, so Aria bails when alarms sound and Hanna comes to her rescue. She never hears from Olaf again until A sends her an article that he is missing. Yikes.

It wasn’t my favourite storyline but basically, A gives Aria a forgery of the Van Gogh making her believe it’s the one that was stolen and she was going to jail. Naturally, nothing else comes of this, it’s just something to make Aria sweat.

While this is going on, the girls all decide to get away from A by meeting up in this panic room at a property Spencer’s soon-to-be stepdad owns. They also get burner phones so that A is not able to text them anymore because that always works so well. A does manage to contact them a few times in the real world without text though because A is unstoppable.

The girls also decide to step up their game in finding out who A is. Well, they think it’s Alison, but they figure she has to be getting help since she can’t do everything alone. So their main suspect is Noel and I’m not gonna lie he has made the most sense. Plus he was shady on the TV show so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved. But Noel is Aria’s boyfriend so she refuses to believe he is suspicious. Even if he did sign her up to be the host of the prom decorating committee where the theme is Starry Night, exactly like the painting she supposedly stole in Iceland.

To help get more information, Spencer decides to reach out to this conspiracy theory blog that was writing about Alison’s disappearance case. Seems hella sketchy and suspicious but Spencer thinks this guy is legit and he provides some useful information to her.

For example, he says that since Alison managed to escape the fire, she probably needed medical attention and had someone helping her privately since she couldn’t go to the hospital. They go investigate where a private nurse is supposed to live but it ends up being a trap. This is when Spencer wonders if maybe Chase, the guy who runs the blog, isn’t who he says he is.

Things escalate further with them when Spencer begins to suspect he is A after he reveals he knew about Jamaica, even though Spencer had never told him that. So she runs away from him on the way to prom lol.

In the end, Chase reveals he is not who he said he was, he is actually Chase’s brother who is pretending to be him because the real Chase is embarrassed about his scars from when he was attacked by his own stalker in the past. It’s so farfetched and I’m rolling my eyes at this story but Spencer seems to forgive Chase, especially when he has evidence Alison might be alive. His evidence is some blurry surveillance video stills of someone who vaguely resembles Alison, not exactly solid proof but it’s something. It’s enough to get him back in Spencer’s good books anyway.

As for Emily, she’s decided to break Iris out of the Preserve because if anyone was going to know something it was going to be her. Iris was Alison’s former roommate at the Preserve as well as Hanna’s. At first, I did think Emily was going to fall for Iris too because that’s just what she does but the two remain platonic and even kind of friends.

At first, I didn’t want to trust Iris, I mean she seemed like the kind of person to take advantage of Emily and she was sort of but I was waiting for when she made a break for it and didn’t want to return to the Preserve or something dramatic. But really, she just wanted to live a bit of life and have fun, and I guess shoplift lol but hey, it could have been worse.

Iris reveals to Emily that Alison had a boyfriend when she was at the Preserve, she never mentioned his name but Iris would know him if she saw him. Iris said she only ever met him once, and it isn’t until they are at prom when Iris sees Noel’s prom king photo that she tells Emily that’s who Alison was dating. Yikes. A big red flag against Noel.

Meanwhile, Hanna has volunteered at the burn clinic again because that was where Graham – Tabitha’s ex from the cruise ship – was staying and the girls wanted to be the first ones to know when he woke up so they could find out what he was trying to tell Aria.

While Hanna is there, she makes friends with a girl called Kayla, they seem to really hit it off and bond which is nice. Hanna tells Kayla all about being nominated for prom queen and also about how she is really concerned about her friend Graham.

Cut to prom night when Hanna gets a call about how Graham has woken up so she rushes to the burn clinic to try to speak to him, all she manages to get out of him is that the person who set the bomb off on the ship’s name began with an N. This is because shortly after this Graham dies, which is just Hanna’s luck. But also what is suspicious is that Kayla was in the room with him.

At the same time, Aria confronts Noel about Alison because she had a feeling he wasn’t being honest with her and he revealed he had visited her at the Preserve and that he felt sorry for her. He clearly didn’t know the full story, but he tried to explain what he could to Aria but she didn’t want to hear it. The other girls show up soon when they find out Aria has run off with Noel because they also think he’s dangerous and manage to rescue Aria.

The next day, Hanna goes back to the burn clinic and finds out that Kayla had actually been murdered a few days ago, her body was found at the back of the clinic. This means that the girl that Hanna was talking to wasn’t Kayla at all but actually Alison?! Damn, the plot twist I was not expecting. I can’t believe Alison would have killed someone to impersonate her at the hospital. Then again, that’s exactly something she would do because she’s psycho.

Alison also leaves a note for Hanna to go to the school so the girls decide to go but also call the police because they are worried about what they might find. What they find inside the shed is Noel Khan, tied up and badly beaten up. Yikes. Looks like he’s not part of the A team at all…

And that’s where we end things. Naturally, the girls look suspicious AF for finding Noel in that situation and they are prime suspects. And A confirms to us that there are two of them working together to take down the girls, it’s just not Noel.

At this point, I have no idea who is helping Alison. I didn’t want to believe it was Noel because when the girls guess it’s someone they are usually wrong lol but he was making the most sense. Plus he did seem suspicious but that’s because the book wants you to believe he is you know?

Based on my knowledge from the TV show I can’t picture who it could be, mainly because Wren isn’t around anymore and has no connection to Alison. It also would be weird if it was Wilden because in the books he’s not even a cop anymore and is in a relationship with Melissa lol. I don’t know anyone else that they’ve really mentioned, I mean Naomi was in the clear from the last book too. So yeah, who knows? I guess we keep reading to find out.

Burned PLL Book #12 by Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

We are starting off 2023 with our Pretty Little Liars and this time they’re on a cruise! Yeah it’s super random but I guess it’s nice to have a setting other than Rosewood every once in a while. Plus they think by going on a cruise, they’ll be free from A which we all know is just wishful thinking.

In this one we find out that Hanna’s big summer secret is that she was driving someone home after having had a drink at the bar and she ended up being run off the road and crashing. Yikes. Hanna was panicked because of her past with drunk driving and crashing cars she didn’t own so she called the girls and asked them to help move the girl who is in the passenger seat into the driver’s seat. Not the smartest idea but these girls don’t always make the best decisions.

I’m not going to lie, I am going to cut out talking about the actual cruise because there is nothing of worth about it, they might as well still be in Rosewood.

Anyway, the deal with Hanna’s hit and run situation is that the girl she was driving home turns out to be Naomi’s cousin. Naomi is one of the girls Hanna is on again/off again friends with as she navigates Rosewood popularity, and Naomi was also friends with the real Alison before Courtney took over and became friends with the Liars. This connection makes her the girls’ new prime A suspect.

Compared to the last people they thought was A, I think Naomi would make sense considering she is the same age as them and can get away with being around them when A related things happen. So I accept this compared to when they thought A was a grown ass woman that barely had any connection to them before Emily got pregnant.

The girls also believe that whoever A is has to have a helper, they can’t be everywhere at once. Which we all knew I mean mainly just from watching the TV show we know an A team can very much be in play.

I’ll put a pin in Naomi for now if only to mention briefly how dumb I think Emily’s new love interest is. I thought it was bad on the TV show when Emily had a new girlfriend every 5 minutes but it’s the same in the books. She always has someone. This time, it’s a random girl who is a stowaway on the boat called Jordan.

Long story short, Jordan is a wanted thief and she wants Emily to run away with her and Emily almost considers doing it but A calls the cops before they get a chance to escape. I honestly just roll my eyes anytime Emily meets someone new because she almost always ends up getting with them and they always remind her of Alison in some way or another. It’s boring at this point I need her to be a strong independent woman without all these troublemakers getting in the way.

As for Spencer, she is crushing on this guy called Reefer, who is a stoner she met at the Princeton thing from the last book. Not who I thought would be Spencer’s type but we go along with it. The issue she has though is that Naomi is also into Reefer? Again surprised as I didn’t think he would be Naomi’s type either but naturally there’s drama between the two as Naomi tries to steal Reefer from Spencer.

We also learn that Naomi was doing shady things to Spencer which seemed like things A would do to her which further proved the girls’ theory of her being A. For example, Spencer slipping on oil in front of Reefer and putting gum in her hair etc. Though it was weird so much was targeted at Spencer in comparison to the other girls. But good to know the girls were right about something lol. Apart from Naomi being A, she just wanted to win Reefer over by getting Spencer out of the picture she’s not out to torture the girls for real.

Then there is Aria, who has gotten herself tangled up with Tabitha’s ex boyfriend? Because of course he would be on the same cruise as the girls. Aria feels bad for what they did to Tabitha and so she thinks doing something nice for her ex might somehow bring her good karma? But really Aria should just learn when to leave things alone lol.

Also Noel gives Aria a necklace which he found on the beach and it turns out to be Tabitha’s. This seems sketch but at the same time could have been planted by A. We also see there is a photo of Tabitha and Alison together in the necklace which is weird but proves they knew each other and were friendly.

Anyway yeah, things turn weird with Aria and Graham – Tabitha’s ex – as he wants to talk to Aria about something serious but she is worried that he is A after the girls figure he’s probably the person working with Naomi. I don’t remember exactly what their reasoning was for these two people to work together but I imagine it wasn’t a very strong link. But once they think he’s dangerous and he’s trying to talk to Aria, she freaks out and runs away from him. He seems to act weirdly when he sees Aria’s necklace, which he has every right to be if it belonged to his old girlfriend.

So Aria runs away from him but he chases after her, it seems what he has to say is very important but Aria doesn’t want to hear it and locks herself down in near the ship’s control rooms. While she is there, an explosion in the ship goes off and so everyone has to evacuate. Great. Fun.

The girls meet up and talk and they think that A planted the necklace for Noel to find and give to Aria and now it makes them look even more guilty of murder, so their solution is to take a lifeboat out to the middle of the ocean and for Spencer to scuba dive into the deep ocean and leave the necklace down there for no one to find. This is so farfetched and dumb I was literally rolling my eyes so hard. Like first of all, it’s not safe and second of all just toss the necklace into the ocean anyway? Did it really need to be buried? Dumb.

Naturally, the plan backfires when the girls are all in the water and their lifeboat mysteriously deflates and they are stranded in the ocean. Thankfully Naomi comes to the rescue when she sees the girls go off-course. Which proves she’s not A because why would she save their lives if she was trying to destroy them?

It’s after this rescue mission that Hanna confesses to Naomi that she was the one who crashed her cousin’s car that night of the accident. She thought Naomi might have figured it out long ago and that was her motive for being A but it turns out that Naomi had no idea that Hanna was involved in the accident. So I would say that friendship bridge has well and truly been burnt down.

Though Naomi did reveal to Hanna that when Alison came back as Courtney she called Naomi and asked for her help to take down the girls. Naomi turned it down because she thought it was farfetched and ridiculous. So that’s interesting, makes you wonder what would have happened if she had said yes.

The girls talk and Aria wonders if maybe Graham wasn’t trying to hurt her but actually tell her who was. Before the explosion, he was trying to tell her someone was watching her or something like that, so she tries to look for him but overhears people talking about how he is in a coma. Yikes. Guess she won’t find out what he knows anytime soon.

When everyone returns to Rosewood the girls think it’s finally time to confess what they did to Tabitha. They are done dealing with A and all the drama and so they call up the lead in Tabitha’s investigation to turn themselves in. However as they are about to do this, they see on TV that there’s been a breakthrough in Tabitha’s case. They find out that she was killed by blunt force trauma to the head, not the fall from the bird’s nest. So Aria didn’t kill her, A did.

So the book ends with the girls decided not to confess to the murder because they didn’t commit it and them reconsidering what Emily was saying all this time about A being Alison. Especially because Emily finally confesses to leaving the door open for her in the Poconos.

Honestly, I feel like this was a wild goose chase over nothing. I mean it was interesting to learn about Naomi knowing about Alison the whole time she came back but nothing else came of it. Also I wonder what Graham saw? Though the likelihood of us finding out is slim. I guess we will have to read more to find out!

With only a few books left though, I am not sure how this all comes to a head, though I’d say a lot can happen in a few books in comparison to the TV show in which they really put the biggest load of nothing in for the finale episodes. So we keep going. I would like to wrap up the series in the first half of 2023. So I’ll be back very soon with another PLL recap.

December 2022 Reading Wrap Up

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

It is the last reading wrap up of the year and there is only one book I read. And honestly, if I hadn’t been in the mood for reading this last week it wouldn’t have been finished lol. But it’s the end of the year and usually around this time of year I don’t read much and that’s fine. We did a lot of reading the rest of the year so we deserve a break.

West with Giraffes

This was an Amazon Prime First Reads book and I have to say I enjoyed it. It was not something I would usually read and so it took me a while to get into it but once I was in I thought it was good.

The writing style was not my favourite but we can forgive that because the story was a cute one. Plus I got very emotional towards the end which I was not expecting. Like literally read the last pages and then burst into tears so I guess the book had more of a hold on me than I thought.

But that was the last read of the year and I’m glad we ended on a high. And there’s plenty more reading to come in 2023, especially because my boyfriend got me a bunch of books for Christmas and a Kindle. So I am more than ready to begin the next year reading-wise.

I think I am setting my goal for next year at 30 books. I mean I’ve achieved it in the last couple years without trying so I think it’s a safe goal. I can’t imagine being a 52-book goal person. I read a lot but a book a week is too much lol sometimes you need longer sometimes you need shorter. But never say never.

I hope you will continue on my book journey with me I’m 2023. Who knows. Maybe my reading will inspire you to pick up your own book. Or not lol I imagine my books aren’t to everyone’s taste but still as long as I’m reading I’ll be here sharing it. See you in 2023!

November 2022 Reading Wrap Up

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I feel like in terms of reading November was a slow one, but I also thought I’d read more than I had lol. Oh well, it’s the end of the year things, in general, are winding down I’m not too mad about not reading much, especially when I have already reached my goal.

Stunning PLL #11

Full thoughts here.

From what I remember about this one, I didn’t like it that much. I also felt like I read it months ago but it was only a few weeks ago. I think the story was just getting a bit too farfetched for me, which is saying a lot considering how wild the TV show ended up being. But still, we soldier on as we only have a handful of books left.

Daisy Jones & The Six

I picked this up after loving the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. This one had a very different vibe from that one but still the same theme of women who have more layers to them than people realise and we love that.

It took me a while to get into the writing style because there was about six people’s thoughts going on at all times but eventually I got into a groove. It was a good story and I really enjoyed it.

I also found out they are turning the the book into a TV show so I’ll be tuning into that when it’s released to see how everything comes to life on the screen. I also feel proud of myself for reading the book of something first before I watch a film/TV show adaptation lol.

Currently Reading: West with Giraffes

I’m not ready to return to PLL just yet so I decided to pick up one of the many Amazon Prime First Reads books I have accumulated over the last two years. I think I’m finally on the 2021 picks lol.

This one will take me a while to read though, mainly because it’s taken me a while to decide if I enjoy the style of writing or not. I feel that if most people aren’t feeling it right away they would bail out within the first few pages but I was really giving this one a go.

But I’ve finally adjusted to the writing and I think it’s an interesting story so I’m going to stick with it, even if it’s going to take me twice as long as normal to read. It’s not that the language is difficult or anything, I just feel like I need my full attention on it compared to other stories.

It might be my last read of the year but that’s okay it just means we have even more to be reading next year as my to-read pile continues to grow lol.

Stunning PLL Book #11 by Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ 1 Comment

This one was a wild ride. First of all, the girls think that a grown-ass woman is A? Almost like when on the TV show they thought A was Jessica DiLaurentis lol. Why would a middle-aged woman care so much about your secrets? It’s so random. I guess they do provide good reasoning as to why they think she is A but it never quite added up for me.

Anyway yeah, so this one was like extra ridiculous, and I know I usually go into a full-blown account of what happens but with this one I’m going to try to keep it brief. I say try because when I start writing it just kind of gets away from me.

So first of all the secrets and the drama the girls had was very random and not relevant to anything. I mean Emily was the main focus here so everyone else’s drama was just thrown in because they all have to be tortured equally you know?

For example, Aria finds out that Noel’s dad did drag and then A threatens to expose it unless she breaks up with Noel. Like what was that? It is so random and provides nothing aside from it just being funny. I think the most shocking thing was that Noel knew about it and that it was just a normal accepted thing. Which, I mean fine, Noel’s dad do what you want but if he’s not actively hiding it then surely more people in Rosewood would talk? I don’t know just wasn’t my vibe. There had to have been more scandalous secrets for a family as rich as Noel’s to be hiding, but that’s what we went with.

Next, there is Hanna stalking Mike and his new girlfriend, I mean not surprising but A leads Hanna on this wild goose chase acting as if Mike’s girlfriend Colleen has been hiding a huge secret. Again a lacklustre reveal – she did an embarrassing commercial and Hanna was going to share it with everyone. Hanna has a change of heart though, realising that she didn’t want to be a bully and so instead, A shares a video of her stalking Mike and Colleen making her the loser.

Again, nothing surprising, I feel like a lot of Hanna’s stuff is very repetitive. Plus Mike ends up getting back together with Hanna in the end anyway because he thinks it’s cool she loved him enough to stalk him?? It’s very dumb.

As for Spencer, she is trying to impress a club at Princeton by baking pot brownies and bringing them to the club’s potluck. Yeah, this one also was dumb. Basically, Spencer makes fast friends with this girl but then feels uncomfortable seeing her smoking pot, A calls the cops on her and everyone thinks Spencer did it. Then Spencer apologises to the girl and the girl invites her to a potluck and Spencer thinks she means to bring food with drugs in it? Yeah okay.

Naturally, this idea backfires, like seriously backfires as A switches Spencer’s brownies out for some that are much stronger and laced with LSD and something else I don’t remember. This is definitely a step up for A and hella dangerous. Someone definitely could have died but they did not and it was all kind of fine in the end.

Definitely not my fave situation and honestly thought Spencer was smarter than that but yeah that’s where we are with that one.

Finally, there is Emily, and we finally learn what happened to her and her baby. So Emily had promised this woman, Gayle, her baby after Gayle offered her a lot of money but Emily ended up changing her mind because she seemed like a psychopath. Which is fair because who randomly offers someone $50k for their baby?

Emily ends up calling her friends to help her get the baby to the original adoptive parents Emily had chosen before Gayle offered her money and she thought she had gotten away with it, until Gayle shows up again in her life. Gayle has moved into town recently to help fund Tom Marin’s senate campaign. Coincidence? The girls think not and sus out that she’s A because she is getting revenge for Emily changing her mind about the baby.

It’s a stretch, because why would Gayle want to punish the rest of the girls for something Emily did? Seems a bit random. Also they justify it because Gayle is always around, she knows Hanna’s business because she’s on her dad’s campaign and she knows about Spencer’s Princeton activities because she’d been spotted there before. Doesn’t really explain how she knew Aria’s thing but the girls are just adamant she’s A.

Not to mention, Gayle comes face to face with Emily and says she wants what she’s owed, which people assume is the baby. So now everyone thinks Gayle is trying to track down Emily’s baby and steal it from her. Again this whole thing sounds ridiculous as I type it. Like between this book and the last, it’s like some switch in me has flipped and I just find all this so dumb??

I mean at least in the last book, Kelsey was the same age as the girls and you could see her as A because she’d be petty like that. And the drama was still silly between the girls but it wasn’t so over the top it was unbelievable. This time though I feel like things were wild for the sake of it.

PLUS A lures the girls to Gayle’s house at the end of the book saying that they had Emily’s baby and then A ends up killing Gayle at the end like…are you serious? Why? What is the point?

The girls also find out that Gayle was Tabitha’s step mum which is something new but they didn’t know until the end. I mean if they had known before that would have been a stronger case for her being A if she somehow knew about Jamaica. But seems like she didn’t know.

And the final bomb to be dropped is that at Gayle’s funeral, her husband, aka Tabitha’s dad, reveals that he got an autopsy done on his daughter and he knows it was a murder and not an alcohol overdose. So the girls are not out of the woods for this murder just yet.

So that’s everything, still quite a long post but I feel hits the main points. Like I said I feel like this book was way too OTT with the drama that it just made everything seem ridiculous. I suppose this is the downfall when a series runs on too long, the same thing happened with the PLL TV show. Which is sad but since I have made it this far we might as well continue on.

We still need to find out what Aria did in Iceland that was so horrible and Hanna has a summer secret too so I hope we get those revealed soon. I just need them to be a lot less extreme because I don’t know how to take this series seriously anymore. I guess it’s not supposed to be super serious as a teen drama series but still, there has to be some layer of believability.

Maybe I’ll read something else before diving into the next book to cleanse my mind from all the craziness that happened in this book…Or we just power through and get it done as quickly as possible…either way I am finishing this series.