Pretty Little Liars (Pretty Little Liars Series #1) Book

(I think it's extra hilarious to visualize Chris Lilley's Ja'mie King character in the context of this book, especially with all of the snarky things she says, because it totally applies to PLL)


Alison
She's the queen bee who knows how to make the girls feel like they belong, but digs at them to keep them insecure and put them in their place so they'll never challenge her. Ali is Regina George minus Tina Fey's writing, in that she's a toxic manipulator but there isn't the underlying dark humor or commentary here. She just is who she is, and she has you wrapped around her finger.


Hanna
Hanna basically Longbottoms and now has an eating disorder and steals things.


Spencer
I HATE SPENCER. No apologies. I just do. We've all known someone like this, haven't we? The over-achiever; the person whose only motivation for doing things is because it will look good on a college application. I get that colleges are competitive and you need to pad that résumé, but doesn't it strike anyone else as phony when someone is doing charity work just to brag about it? Yeah, I have a little rant about that, but there are things you do out of the goodness of your heart and not just because you want recognition for; which is why people like Spencer get on my nerves.

Further, Spencer is hyper-competitive with her sister and is hell-bent on beating her old records. She even makes out with her sister's fiancé'and while the attraction appears mutual, that is seriously messed up to do to your own sibling. The thing is that the competition is one-sided as Melissa doesn't even appear to care if her younger sister is trying to blow her own records out of the water. Spencer is basically playing against a ghost, which is really pathetic but all too common these days.

I just see her as deeply unhappy and no amount of awards or good grades will fill her Type A emptiness. Nothing will ever be good enough for people like this, and it turns into a vicious cycle of trying to one-up everyone else'even when nobody else is playing.


Aria
Nothing really special about her (in this first book, at least). She comes back from to the states from being abroad and kinda looks down at how Americans live. Le sigh at all her pretentious ex-pat BS. Also, she hooks up with an older man in a bar'actually, it seems all of the kids are drinking underage and nobody is carding in this community'who just so happens to be her English teacher.


Emily
She's on the swim team, she's questioning her sexuality, and her parents are probably racists. She's a flat character in the book, and she seems like a token one on the show as they change her ethnicity so that she's both non-white and non-straight. Great going for diversity, I. Marlene King. What's next? A problematic representation of a trans character? Oh wait, you already did that.


The Writing
While not the best, it's certainly fast-paced. Despite all of the name-dropping of brands that makes the story feel dated, there's a lot of honesty in how [many of] the characters interact. This is the kinda book you can pick up and read if a few hours while you jump on a last minute flight to the beach for the weekend. It's fluffy and little pulpy, though a pretty solid popcorn read overall.