This one was a wild ride from start to finish and I was OBSESSED.

First of all, the DiLaurentises decide to hold a press conference to announce they’ve had a secret daughter for the last 16 years. I mean wtf lol. Personally, I feel like I wouldn’t hold a press conference for this but at the same time, their daughter was murdered and if her identical twin just started appearing around town it would be questionable. So yes, welcome to the stage Courtney DiLaurentis.

Naturally, the first thing Courtney does is talk to the four best friends of her sister Alison. The girls are shocked and weirded out by how much this girl looks like the Alison they knew and loved but she wasn’t. Or is she??

One by one, Courtney reveals to the girls she’s actually Alison and that Courtney was mentally ill and pretended to be her. So Alison ended up getting sent away to a mental institution. So the girl that was killed was actually Courtney.

Kind of confusing but that’s where we are. Alison also says she wants to be friends with all the girls again just like old times and the girls don’t really take much convincing.

I mean Emily was the easiest because she was so helplessly in love with Alison, all that Alison had to do was kiss Emily and she agreed. Which is sad because I wanted more for Emily but no she’s just annoying when she’s blinded by her love for Ali even though she did horrible things to them and lead her on.

After Emily, came Hanna. Alison easily swept in and complimented Hanna, promising her that she’d get revenge on Kate, Riley and Naomi for being mean to Hanna. Now Hanna and Alison could be the besties Hanna has always wanted now that Hanna was getting the validation she needed from Ali.

Next, Alison exploits Spencer’s fragile feelings about them being sisters and says they could really be the sisters they’ve always wanted. Especially when Spencer’s family has exploded and Alison is the only relative of hers that is interested in talking to her. Poor Spence, again thought she’d be stronger.

Last but not least, Aria was the hardest to convince and I am glad because someone needed to be suspicious of Alison coming back into their lives like nothing happened. Sadly for Aria, she was not immune to Ali’s manipulation tactics because as soon as Ali accuses Noel of kissing her and not the other way around, Aria is ready to dump Noel and hang out with her old best friends again…

So all the girls are headed out to Alison’s family’s house in the Poconos to recreate the night of the sleepover where Alison disappeared. And all the while things have seemed hella suspicious for example, Alison not remembering things that happened with the girls when they were friends. But Alison convinces them that recreating the night she disappeared will be helpful for her to rewrite the memory and so they agree to be hypnotised.

Next thing you know, the girls open their eyes and Ali is nowhere to be seen, they find a letter which details the truth about Alison and Courtney DiLaurentis. Turns out that Courtney switched places with Alison the day of the Time Capsule flag, Alison was sent away to the Preserve and Courtney became friends with Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer and that was the Ali they knew and loved. Alison managed to escape the Preserve and get her revenge on Courtney and now she was going to kill the girls too for enabling Courtney to steal her life.

Alison had set fire to the house the girls were in and while they are trying to escape they discover Ian’s dead body in the closet, along with Melissa. Now Melissa had been acting shady this whole book and it turns out she was investigating Alison because she was suspicious of her the whole time. Apparently, Melissa knew Alison had a twin all along and she knew they didn’t get along as soon as Alison came back as Courtney and said her sister talked about the girls all the time she knew something was up. So the girls always saw Melissa being shady, talking to Wilden, skulking about in the woods etc.

Somehow Alison managed to drug and kidnap Melissa and stuck her in the trunk of her car before she drove the girls to the Poconos. Wild. I like to believe that Melissa is taller than Ali and so it’s hard to imagine her coming in and drugging and stuffing a grown-ass woman like Melissa into her trunk but there you go haha. I suppose Ali is highly unstable and capable of anything if she was killing Ian and Jenna so makes sense she could kidnap Melissa.

Anyway that all happens, the girls manage to escape and they think Alison died in the fire, as Emily was confronting her before there was an explosion inside the house. And then the girls’ lives go back to normal and they all live happily ever after.

BUT WAIT – there are EIGHT more books hahaha. So yeah in the acknowledgements at the end of this book Sara Shepard clearly says this is the end but clearly not. I guess Sara wasn’t as done with the series as she thought. And so we must continue this journey.

I gotta say though if the TV show had just stuck with the original story of Alison having a twin I would have preferred it. I know they wanted to add a spin with Spencer having the twin instead and I guess that would have been fine but only if they hadn’t thrown in CeCe in the middle. Like I did recently rewatch all of PLL and I’ll say the reveals weren’t as terrible as I originally thought they were but they still weren’t great. I would have rather had an Uber A who was pulling the strings the whole time rather than the game being passed around.

Plus the last season of PLL was TERRIBLE in general, they focused way too much on the girls’ relationships and the tasks A made them do were pitiful. So I’m glad the books wrap things up in a nice way. I fully believe I could just stop reading the books here and it’ll be fine but I bought all 16 for my Kindle so gotta stick it out.

All I hope is that the quality doesn’t dip because sometimes you can have too much of something and it goes downhill and I think the TV show is a prime example of that. So we’ll see, I guess it will be interesting to see if the TV show takes anything from the later books…

But yeah that’s where we are with PLL, and I think I will take this opportunity to read some other things before diving back into PLL. I have been really enjoying these books, don’t get me wrong but if there’s ever a time to take a proper break from a book series it’s when there’s a clear break in them. Like I said, this book wraps the series up pretty well, Alison is seemingly dead and the girls have begun to rebuild and move on with their lives so I can safely leave them there until I am ready to pick it up again and see what drama is next.

Plus it gives me time to blog about something else for a change lol not that I hate this but it would be nice to have some other content on the blog. Not sure what that content will be but we’ll see, I’d say give it a month or so before we get back to PLL though because I do want to complete the series and not forget about it.

Also with this book, I have completed my reading challenge for 2022! So exciting! I definitely have not finished reading for the year but I’m proud of myself for hitting my goal – I guess next year we will have to set it a bit higher. It’s all about being realistic with the goal though, don’t want to aim too high. But anyway that’s not something we have to think about ’til next year lol.

In this one, everyone seemed to be sent on wild goose chases as they tried to figure out what happened to Alison and it was wild.

First, we have Emily, who tells the police after the fire at Spencer’s that they saw Alison and everyone thinks she’s insane because everyone knows Alison died. They found her body. Wilden even tells the girls that the body they found matched Alison’s DNA so it has to be her right?

Naturally, a side effect of this is everyone in the media thinking they are ridiculous, as the girl they saw disappeared around the time the authorities came, so they have no proof if it was Alison. This causes the media to brand the girls “Pretty Little Liars” how cute.

So yes Emily refuses to believe it is not Alison and A sends her on a mission to sneak into an Amish community to find out what the tea is there with Alison. And it’s so random, but what I really can’t believe is that Emily blindly went with it. Like yeah just blindly follow A out into Amish country for a while, that’s cool.

All that comes from this is that Emily finds out a girl who lives there disappeared around the same time that Alison disappeared and that the girl was dating Wilden. Which I guess sounds like a big deal because who knew that Wilden was Amish? Or like even was around the community to be dating someone…

It is also sus that the girl disappeared after saying she was going to leave her community to be with him but at the end of the book, Wilden tells Emily “it’s not what you think,” yeah like we believe that. I just hope that this plot point goes somewhere and isn’t dropped randomly just because.

Meanwhile, Aria didn’t have A to guide her as she went searching for answers on her own. After talking to her parents she thought maybe Alison’s ghost was trying to tell her something, so she goes to a seance. Where she sees Noel Kahn of all people?

The seance turns out to be a dud but Noel finds a different medium who Aria and he meet at the site Alison was buried in her garden and this is where Aria gets a note that says “Ali killed Ali”. Meaning Alison killed herself? Confusing but also kind of makes sense if you know what happens but the girls don’t yet so Aria is just trying to make peace with the fact that Alison might have killed herself. Which seems so off base like why would Alison put herself in the ground with the cement if she was going to commit suicide, even if she took sleeping pills or something that’s very suspicious…

Also of note, Aria and Noel bond after having lost someone close to them, for Aria it is Alison and for Noel, it was his older brother. Noel’s brother committed suicide when Noel was six, this is sad but it also seems like a weird thing for them to bond over. And they kiss so I guess they are kind of a thing now which is good because Noel is the same age as Aria so we approve of this.

No more mention of Ella’s creepy boyfriend hitting on Aria again so I wonder if this is just going to be dropped completely? I mean the girls have bigger things to worry about at the minute so maybe it’ll not come up again, which is fine by me I don’t need it.

Moving on to Spencer, something good happened to her! Sadly it only lasted for a short time, she confessed to her parents about the Olivia situation and they told her that Olivia was their surrogate and she did give birth to Spencer but she was not her daughter. And her parents aren’t even mad about the money being stolen and Spencer being scammed they realise they’ve been shitty parents and so decide to treat Spencer and the Hastings are a happy family once again.

Well, until A tells Spencer to go digging on her dad’s hard drive and she discovers the Peter Hastings and Jessica DiLaurentis affair. Like I said in a previous post, I’m glad this was a thing from the books that made it into the TV show. It’s so dramatic and shocking and I love it. Though in the books, Alison is the one who is the twin and was the result of the affair but in the TV show it’s Spencer. I also think on TV Jason was also Peter’s child because Peter Hastings really couldn’t keep it in his pants lol.

But yeah so Spencer finds this out and drops the bombshell on her mother because she thought she already knew and once again implodes their family with drama. This sucks for Spencer because she was finally living the life she had craved for so long and now her parents are going to be fighting about this. Poor Spence, I guess she has Andrew at least lol.

As for Hanna, well she’s living the most interesting life but she doesn’t know it yet. She ends up getting sent to a mental facility because her father thinks she needs to deal with her PTSD from Mona and now the fire. And I agree because honestly who doesn’t need therapy after their best friend runs them over with their car?

So Hanna is staying at this super fancy place Preserve at Addison Stevens and she has a super cool roommate there called Iris who gives her Alison vibes. She finds out that Iris had a roommate before who is called Courtney who was super cool but she got released recently – this is important because Courtney is Alison’s twin!! But the girls don’t know yet, sad. But also crazy that A would lead her so close to themselves like I didn’t think A wanted to be found out so soon.

Anyway yeah so Hanna makes friends with this girl but other people at the facility try to tell her that Iris is a psycho but she doesn’t listen until she finds out Iris sold a story to People magazine about Hanna’s mental institution stay. Not cute. Hanna is about to confront Iris about it and accuse her of killing Alison but she is hauled away by the police who arrest her.

Ah yes, I didn’t mention before but all the girls end up getting hauled off and arrested for murdering Alison and Ian. So wild and also dramatic for A to set up, especially because minutes later they all get released as the police have found Ali’s “real” murderer.

Apparently, the real murderer is some guy who was working on the construction of the DiLaurentis gazebo, the one where Alison’s body was found. There was evidence of him stalking the girls and sending the A messages, which wraps things all up in a nice neat bow…except we all know that is not what happened and that this man was set up by the real A because why would a grown ass man care enough to send these girls anonymous messages and find out all their secrets? Surely he would just stay hidden and creepy and stalkerish without that right?

And that’s not all that happens at the end of the book, we find out that Jenna was murdered?! Um, what?! So this came out of nowhere for me, I mean we know Jenna knows more than she had let on when she spoke to Aria that one time but we didn’t even get a chance to know what she knows. Aside from the photo A sent Emily with Jenna, Alison and another blonde. She also was spotted outside Aria’s house that one time looking like she wanted to tell her something but we never found out what…

So now we have to see if the girls are able to find out why A would kill Jenna. Which I am sure A will make as difficult as possible because why else would they kill Jenna if not to keep what she knew a secret?

Naturally, I have to start the next book right away because I need to know what’s happening. Also amazed that Alison’s twin has the power and strength to be out killing people, I mean killing your sister is one thing out of rage, adrenaline kicks in and they’re your size so you can take them. But then killing Ian? And moving his body to and from the woods, A definitely has help. And then I guess Jenna is not too far-fetched as she has a disadvantage being blind…poor girl.

And that’s where we are, for now, I’ll probably be back in a few days with another post because I need to find out what happens…I also can’t believe there are still 9 books in this series like that’s crazy but I’m too far gone now to stop and I don’t plan to so I’ll be back soon!

We’re back. Surprised? Didn’t think so lol. I can’t believe I only posted the review of book five last week…it feels like so long ago but that’s probably due to the heat wave.

But yes here we are another PLL book and the girls are up to their usual drama. Or lack thereof. I feel like so much was going on in this book but not a lot is that important?

For example, Hanna and Kate fighting for Mike Montgomery’s attention. It was fun but it didn’t add much to the story, though that could be said about Emily’s relationship in the last book lol. So yeah, let’s start today with Hanna’s thing.

I honestly was just surprised that of all the boys Kate and Hanna chose to fight about it was Mike Montgomery. Unlike the TV show, which seemed to have forgotten about Mike except for when he had depression but also dated Mona for 5 minutes, the books mention Mike a lot.

Mike is often hanging around with Noel Kahn and the other lacrosse boys generally being skeevy. And when he goes on dates with Hanna he is not much different but still Hanna has a soft spot for him and she wanted to one-up Kate by stealing Mike away from her.

Like I said, not much of substance here but it’s fun. I can’t figure out if Kate genuinely liked Mike or if it was a ploy but either way we will see how long Hanna and Mike last. We will also see what else Kate has up her sleeve to throw at Hanna because I doubt that’s the last we will hear from her.

Next, we can talk about Emily because again she really has nothing going on. Like her relationship with Isaac is cute and she ends up losing her virginity to him. Which I guess is a big deal but not in the way Spencer losing hers to Wren was because it’s glossed over very quickly.

Basically the drama Emily has is that Isaac’s mom doesn’t like her and is rude to her and when she tells Isaac he doesn’t believe her. Even though this has happened before with one of his exes. Not cute.

Towards the end though Isaac confronted his mom and she told the truth so Isaac tries to apologise and Emily says she can’t forgive him immediately. And I love that because I feel like usually Emily would forgive someone for doing that but he hurt her feelings and she needs time. So I applaud Emily for that. Even if she still runs away from everything and everyone at the slightest hint of trouble. Literally every scene she was practically running out after confrontation lol. Which I mean same but it’s annoying to read.

And then we have Spencer, who is not making smart choices this book. Which I’m sad about because again, this is not the Spencer I expected. I feel like on the TV show Spencer would never have jumped into something like this but then she did pawn her sisters ring that time so I guess that would be similar.

In this book, Spencer meets up with her birth mom, the one the adoption site matched her with. They hit it off immediately and Spencer fantasises about living this glam life in New York with her mom and her rich husband.

Sadly, Spencer jumps the gun on this as she calls up her birth mom’s supposed real estate agent and agrees to buy an apartment over the phone. First off, this is sketch because you NEVER accept an apartment without seeing it first. Second of all, it was wild she just blindly trusted someone she had just met and handed over her account details on the phone. Yikes.

It all comes crumbling down when Spencer goes to New York and finds out the apartment she paid for didn’t exist and the real estate agent’s phone had been disconnected. Poor Spencer.

I honestly just think she was being stupid but it upsets me so much that she literally has nothing good going for her. Someone even painted Killer on her family’s garage door…like why can’t she have anything good? Even Andrew kind of broke up with her after she jumped into this whole new mom thing. I just want something good for her and soon.

Lastly, we have Aria who pulled through with a good storyline. So Aria is hiding out at Meredith and Byron’s because her mom’s boyfriend is creepy and hitting on her but that is a minor thing. Her main thing is she’s been seeing Jason DiLaurentis on the side.

Jason is an interesting one because we still don’t know a lot about him. He’s just kind of dark and broody which is right up Aria’s alley. They talk a little bit about Alison and flirt and kiss and I’m over here in the corner yelling about how inappropriate that is because he’s older than her. Once again, he’s the same age as Ian and Wilden so too old for Aria and it’s gross.

But it doesn’t last long because A tricks Aria into going to Jason’s house when he’s not there and she spies an old yearbook which seems to indicate that Jason and Wilden used to be friends in high school. And Jason catches Aria in his house and is furious. So I think that’s the end of that relationship.

Now that we’ve talked about the girls’ drama let’s talk about Jason, Ian and Wilden. So once the girls find Ian’s body in the woods, they go to get Wilden but when they get back to the woods the body is gone. Classic A.

Once this happens people start thinking the girls are liars. And everyone believes that Ian is still alive and could have possibly escaped Rosewood. The girls refuse to believe this but one night, Spencer gets an IM from Ian on Melissa’s laptop. Spencer pretends to be Melissa long enough to prove if it’s really Ian and she believes it is.

A is also pushing the girls to figure out who the real killer is by trying to send hints. Like a photo of Jenna, Alison and another blonde who everyone assumes is Naomi, one of Ali’s old friends, but they are partially hidden behind a tree so it could be anyone. Though this never goes anywhere.

There is also a lot of evidence of Jason and Wilden working together as Jason had the yearbook note from Wilden and Hanna figured a lot of clues about Wilden that line up with him possibly working with Jason. Plus the fact they used to be friends in high school and were annoyed about something Ian did.

Emily also sees Jason leaving Jenna’s house and he is very angry – I’m not sure what that has to do with anything yet. So there are some mysteries here.

The girls also end up going to the opening of a hotel, the Radley which used to be a mental institution. This is something I thought was SO RANDOM in the TV show and now I see it happened in the books lol. But Emily finds a ledger there and in it is lots of evidence of Jason visiting. So looks like Jason might have been seeing someone there, the girls think he was seeing a therapist but he could have been visiting someone…

And at the end of the book, Ian reveals to Spencer, Hanna and Emily through IM that Wilden and Jason were out to get him and that’s why he disappeared. Just as this happens someone is outside Spencer’s barn and whoever it is, sets fire to the woods behind it.

Aria is on the other side of the fire, she was rushing to Spencer’s with Ali’s time capsule flag because she thought it could have some answers to their mystery. But she sees someone who is trapped in the woods and manages to save them and pull them to safety.

Aria and the mystery girl manage to make it safely and meet up with the others. This is when the girl is revealed to be Alison?! And the book ends lol.

But not without some words from A which make you question everything you just read lol like did A plant the log of Jason visiting Radley? And did they con Spencer out of her money??? Who knows.

I feel like I could have done without the A chapter. I mean the shock value of the girls possibly seeing Alison would have been enough. But I suppose it serves as a nice recap of stuff. Eh, still don’t need it.

So that’s where we are now. I feel like Ian is dead and A is trying to frame Wilden and Jason. Wilden probably did some other shady things but not murder. Jason though idk why A would want to frame him. Unless it’s because he took Ali’s twin’s side over hers…interesting.

I also wonder if A would make their identity known so soon by being the girl Aria saved from the fire. The twin. The girls don’t know Ali had a twin they just think Ali is alive! If it is the twin, but it could be a lookalike.

I just have a lot of questions at the minute but thankfully all I need to do to get them answered is to keep reading. This is not like the TV show where I am waiting each week to ultimately be disappointing. So on we go to book 7!

Another PLL book down and I gotta say this one had a lot going on but not a lot at the same time? I mean in terms of the girls and A and secrets there wasn’t a lot but there was a lot in relation to Alison and maybe her not seeming like herself at points. So even if I feel like I don’t have much to write this will probably end up being super long lol.

First off secrets! And we will start with Aria as always lol. I find her secrets are always the easiest to talk about. And Aria’s secret is that her mom’s boyfriend is interested in her. So Aria meets this mysterious artist guy at a gallery and she flirts with him because she doesn’t know who he is and then a few days later he shows up at her door to take HER MOM on a date.

This is when Aria realises the guy is older and she needs to step back. Unfortunately, the guy doesn’t take the hint, one thing leads to another and they end up kissing and Aria is freaked out. This guy then says she’s been giving him mixed signals and it’s so disgusting because he is TWICE HER AGE. Like bro – no get out. He threatens Aria saying if she says anything about him to her mom that he would twist the truth to make it look like Aria was hitting on him. DISGUSTING.

Like Aria just got out of an inappropriate relationship and now this creeper is dating her mom and hitting on her. It is the worst and I thought we were done with these creepy-ass old men but I guess not.

So yes, that’s Aria’s thing.

Then with Emily, she realises sexuality isn’t black and white as she ends up having a crush on this guy she met at church. That’s it lol. Her secret was even easier to talk about than Aria’s omg. So yeah Emily dates this guy, she’s worried that A might tell him the truth but also everyone at her school could also spill the tea so eventually, she just tells him and he’s cool with it and all is fine. It’s a whole load of nothing other than Emily not keeping her cool about anything.

For Hanna, we have her maybe getting back on top of her game as she decides to team up with Kate and tackle Naomi and Riley the mean girls. However, she then ends up second-guessing her new alliance after thinking that maybe Mona had been in contact with Kate before she died and they were somehow always working together to pull her down.

So before Kate can expose Hanna for her secrets, Hanna blurts out to everyone at a party that Kate has herpes. Yikes. This backfires for her though as Kate tells her dad and now Hanna can only ever hang out and associate with Kate, effectively ending her popular girl reign. But also it sounded like Kate had been planning something to take Hanna down, we just don’t know what it was…though it could still come up we’ll see.

Also due to Hanna getting popular again, she ends up ditching Lucas who she was dating for like five minutes. And Lucas sees what she does to Kate at the party and breaks up with her for good. So I guess there’s not much worth mentioning with that. I was hoping they would last longer than that but it makes sense, will they reconcile now that Hanna is forced to hang out with her herpes-ridden stepsister? Who knows.

Kate also says to Hanna she doesn’t have herpes so I don’t even know what she had or maybe she just lied about a secret to get Hanna on side but I imagine Kate has a lot more up her sleeve, so we see how that goes.

Meanwhile, Spencer is dealing with the biggest crisis of them all. After admitting she lied about the Golden Orchid she is failing miserably as all her teachers think she’s lying/cheating on her schoolwork and she’s been kicked out of all her extracurriculars. OH and that’s not all, her grandmother died and left money for all natural-born grandchildren which didn’t include Spencer!

So Spencer is not a true Hastings?! This is exciting because this must mean that the Peter Hastings/Jessica DiLaurentis affair from the TV show came from the books. Though not sure how the fallout of this will go. Spencer signed up for this adoption service that’s supposed to help her find her birth mother and there was a potential match…looking forward to the drama.

I am hoping something good comes Spencer’s way soon though like her parents have barely spoken to her lately and have all but disowned her it’s awful. I guess she is hooking up with Andrew but is it just a hookup? Or will they become the smart power couple they are destined to be? Either way, I just want something good to be going for Spencer lol.

It also amazes me that we are this far into the series and the girls are still not friends. Like on the TV show it was so easy for them to fall back into being friends and hanging out. But I suppose the TV show would have sucked if they never talked or anything, in the book they only talk when they have to which I guess highlights just how much Alison brought them together as they are so different.

Also in this book, Ian’s trial for Ali’s murder is about to begin and he is on house arrest until the trial starts. But he sneaks out to talk to Spencer and he insists that he didn’t kill Alison and that the night in the woods he saw two blondes. One of them was Ali but who was the other one? *cough* twin *cough*. It wasn’t Spencer and she thinks he is making it up but maybe he isn’t…

Ian also says that he had always flirted with Ali but they were never serious about it and then all of a sudden she changed her mind. How strange. Almost as strange as when Alison decided to dump hanging out with her old friends and make friends with Spencer, Aria, Emily and Hanna. Turns out they hadn’t always been BFFs. Along with this, there are other subtle things that prove with Alison had seemed to switch to a different person, like Emily mentioning to her something that happened before they became friends and Alison lying about it…I wonder how long it will take for them to find out the truth.

Probably a long time, I mean new A has just arrived and they are only taking it seriously by the end of the book. At first, they think it is Ian, but then A lures Spencer and the girls out into the woods behind Spencer’s house and they find Ian’s body there. It looks like he’d been strangled to death…so A killed him. Not sure how the police are going to deal with this.

Also, Wilden in this book has been acting sus. He so far hasn’t been totally useless and has actually wanted to help the girls but he seems to be having serious conversations with someone on the phone…not sure what that’s about. But also he must be tortured because the girls seem to have him on speed dial and call him every 5 minutes which is so different from the TV show lol they learnt early on that they couldn’t trust the police on the TV show.

Then finally the only other thing worth mentioning is throughout the book they talk about this Time Capsule day and how Alison had found a piece of the flag to decorate. All the girls had shown up to her backyard to steal it from her but she said it was too late it was already taken. Aria had then headed back into the woods to go to her house when she ran into Jason, he had the flag piece and he gave it to Aria and said nothing. This is weird but obviously significant, especially as Aria had kept the piece and not turned it in. Is there something sus about it? I am not sure but I’ll be interested to see if it comes up again.

And that is us at the end of another PLL book. I am intrigued to see where we go from here. Obviously, Ian’s death is going to be a big thing. I’m wondering if Peter Hastings will be exposed for being the dirty cheater he is and Spencer can get some of her life back. I also hope Emily learns to chill out lol, Hanna will be suffering with Kate and it looks like Aria might move back in with Meredith and Byron to get away from her mom’s creepy boyfriend. So lots of fun things to look forward to.

I’ll probably be back in a few days because I can’t stop reading these – they’re so good. So stay tuned!

Here we are book 3 and we have lots to discuss.

First of all, Aria and the fact that her mom can’t stand to look at her after the fact she knew about Byron and Meredith. Gross. I mean I know her mom is mad at her daughter but that’s still your daughter…yet she still says she can’t see Aria for a while so Aria is staying with Sean’s family.

Also, Aria painted a red A on Meredith’s chest for adulterer and I thought that was kind of fun, though nothing comes from it and I thought for sure Byron was gonna freak out about it.

Even though Aria is with Sean that doesn’t stop her feelings for Ezra as she ends up hanging out with him and telling him about her parents and everything going on and they reconnect… but not for long! Because A tells Sean about Aria and Ezra and Sean calls the POLICE. HA.

Yes, that’s right. Ezra Fitz went to JAIL. FINALLY. That’s why I needed to talk about Aria first I needed to get this out because this is what I needed lol. Instead of dragging us through their whole messy-ass relationship, they gave me what I needed. A brief romance that ended with the child predator being arrested. Thank you.

Needless to say that Aria and Sean are over and Aria is a bit homeless now because her mom still doesn’t want to see her, she’s not talking to her dad and her boyfriend has dumped her. Not sure what is next for Aria but I imagine something kooky is just around the corner.

Next, we have Emily, who wanted to tell the police about A. Poor girl. She hasn’t learned that you don’t do something A doesn’t want you to. Well, she finds out the hard way when A outs her to the whole school at a swim meet by posting photos of her and Maya around for everyone to see.

Unlike on the TV show where no one at school really finds out or cares, everyone at school is fetishizing Emily which is pretty gross. Like all the boys wanting to hang out with her to see her kiss a girl. Bleh. But also not surprising.

What’s really gross though is that her parents want her to try a gay conversion therapy camp place. And Emily thinks she should do it and “fix” herself until she realises that’s not how it works and she can’t change who she is. This is not good news for Mrs. Fields who definitely wants her child to be straight and is threatening to send her to Iowa to live with her aunt…

Thank God this is not what happens on the TV show because it would not have gone down well. Obviously, Emily’s mom is upset but she eventually comes around to everything, I don’t know if that will happen in the book though. I’m not sure what will happen for Emily now to be honest but she can’t just be shipped off she’s one of the Liars.

Then there is Spencer who is being made to see a therapist by her parents. Which I think is a good call, though it’s probably not best to be seeing the same therapist as your sister, there is definitely some conflict in that. Not to mention Melissa’s appointment is right after Spencer’s which is again not good.

Spencer finds out that she’s been suppressing horrible memories or traumatic events in her life as she is having a mental block on the fight she had with Alison on the night she disappeared. Through therapy and time she discovers that the night that Ali disappeared, they were fighting over the fact Alison was dating Ian and Spencer couldn’t have him. Yikes.

Alison apparently told Ian to kiss Spencer as a test to see if he would do anything for her and he did. And now Alison was holding her relationship with Ian over Spencer. And Spencer was angry with Alison and so she pushed her, and Alison fell and hit her head. So Spencer realises that she hurt Alison that night but she is sure she didn’t kill her…well she definitely didn’t carry Ali into her backyard and dump her body where the police found it at least.

So that’s one revelation. It’s good to know they kept key points about the girls similar to the TV show. Like the relationship with Ian and Spencer not remembering what happened that night. Though they made Spencer out to be on drugs when that happened on the TV which was a bit extra but there you go.

Anyway, on top of that Spencer and Melissa fight after A lets Melissa know that Spencer stole her essay for the Golden Orchid. Things get heated and Spencer ends up pushing Melissa down the stairs. Which is pretty dark, like I didn’t expect this from her but now her family thinks she’s dangerous. So it’ll be interesting to see where that goes.

And finally, we have Hanna who spends this book trying to prove to Mona they are still besties after she misses her Friendaversary with Mona to be questioned by the police about Alison’s disappearance. Naturally, Mona doesn’t want to listen to any excuses though, and kicks Hanna off of her birthday party court and uninvites her to the party completely.

But this gives Hanna the excuse to make friends with Lucas. Apparently, he was cool in school until the rumour of him being a hermaphrodite circulated around and now he is a nerd. But he is nice to Hanna and he invites her on a hot air balloon ride of all things and they bond haha. Like why would you trust anyone who you are hanging out with for the first time to take you up in a hot air balloon that’s such an easy way to get murdered but anyway Hanna makes it out alive.

Plus after Hanna gets humiliated at Mona’s party her and Lucas have a moment where they makeout so I’m wondering if they start to become a couple or not. Which I would be all for because we never got that on the TV show, and if Caleb is not going to show up I feel like Lucas is a good option for Hanna.

At the end of the book, we have Aria looking at an old video of her and the girls and making the connection between Alison and Ian and then thinking maybe Spencer had something to do with Alison’s death since she was crushing on Ian. And we have Hanna who receives a text from A but this time with a number that she recognises…looks like she knows who A is.

As Hanna is rushing to tell the girls, BAM! She gets hit by a car.

She knew too much. – A

Yep. Can’t say I’m surprised I saw the TV show. Similar events play out in season one at Mona’s birthday. Except for the girls at Camp Mona for her birthday and not at a Planetarium. Though I gotta say that Hanna getting hit by the car in the books makes way more sense than on the TV show.

The TV show says Hanna knew too much because she saw Noel Kahn write on the back of Ezra’s car while he is with Aria. But that ultimately leads nowhere because Noel is not A. But in the book? Hanna definitely knows who the real A is and that’s more interesting.

This book also has an A chapter but it’s not as cringey as the one from the first book. It also confirms that Mona slipped up when texting Hanna and it’s not a tactical slip to make her think A is someone else. So I guess if you were paying enough attention this is where you would figure out who A is, as before this I feel like there are not super strong hints that you can tell who it is?

Also interesting that Mona is pointing the girls toward Spencer killing Alison? Of course, she could have been lurking in the shadows that night and thought it was her. In the book, Spencer gets a text that alludes to the killer being right in front of her, while she’s standing at a mirror. So Mona could have easily seen them fight but not what happened next.

Well looks like all will be revealed in the next book which is exciting! I am looking forward to seeing where things go from here. I like seeing the elements they pulled out from the book for the TV show. I do think some of the things A made the girls do early on in the TV show were harsher than in the book. Particularly in relation to Hanna and bingeing and Sean/Lucas. But we’ll see what happens when new A comes into play.