Pretty Little Liars (Pretty Little Liars, #1)

by Sara Shepard

Aria, Emily, Spencer, Hanna and Alison have been best friends since the third grade. They go everywhere together, thinking no-one can come between them. If anyone is the ringleader of the group it is Alison, and the other girls cannot help but confide all their secrets to her. One night, during a sleepover, Alison goes missing. Her body is never found. The girls mourn her death but move apart after time, assuming their secrets have disappeared with Alison too. Three years later and Aria is having an affair with her teacher; Emily is questioning her sexuality; Hanna is a thief; and Spencer is flirting with her sister's fiance. They all think their secrets are safe, until they starting receiving messages from the mysterious A - who knows exactly what they are all up to, and is threatening to spill the beans ...

• ISBN10: 0060887303
• ISBN13: 9780060887308
• Publish Date: 1 October 2006
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 16 June 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 286
• Language: English

Reviews

[mysticalmanuscripts]

A slumber party goes horribly wrong one night for Aria, Spencer, Emily, and Hanna when their best friend, Alison, disappears. Because of their devastating loss, the four girls drift apart, leading separate lives. Aria goes to Iceland, Spencer does extracurriculars, Emily swims, and Hanna becomes popular at Rosewood Day. Three years later, they receive ominous text messages from someone named A, who threatens to reveal secrets that only Alison knows.

This book’s premise is its best feature. This could have been a great read if the author had done a good job of handling every part of the story, except the mystery. The characters in the story are shallow and the author emphasizes their appearance, especially their clothing. I find the messages to be appallingly unhealthy. It showed the love between Aria and her English teacher as real, not wrong, considering their power dynamic. Wearing designer labels, being thin, and being wealthy are also implied messages.

Despite a mild interest in learning who A is, I will not continue reading the series. I'm intrigued by the mystery, but the characters and writing aren't captivating. You’ll probably enjoy this if you liked Gossip Girl.

You can see all my reviews here

[bonchcronch]

i learned from PodcAst: A Pretty Little Liars Podcast, that the books were commissioned by corporate so they could turn it into a show. I think its because they had certain budget allotments. They had budget for book to TV series show and not original show or the executs didn't want to do an original and thought putting the blame on a book series was better.

Knowing that it was commissioned by corporate to "young adults" the writing makes sense. There are too many brands that are brought up. it sort of works because it takes place in an environment where having THE brand of things is important.sometimes its hella distracting but its better than the Cheetah Girls books.

The PodcAst also said that the author was an alleged shadow writer for tv shows. which also tracks as the writing is fast paced but goes out of its way to "stage" certain items. IDK if this author has written books before but it reads as stage directions at times.

Overall. I enjoyed it. I didn't think i would and i don't like or connect with the characters. I enjoy the amount of irons in the fire. I enjoy bad things happening to bad people. while they are high schoolers and have a lot to learn about life, they are all rich kids that don't care about shit. its fun to see them squirm and have consequences. I liked it it so much i'm on book 4.

Blackmailer Prediction
Mona?

[kalventure]

'Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.' -Benjamin Franklin.

It's really weird to read a book that you are intimately aware of but never read. The television series Pretty Little Liars was one of my favorite shows despite my being outside of the target demographic, but I enjoyed the mystery and premise of the early seasons before things dragged on for far too long. Many people recommended the book series to me and it is finally time for me to take that plunge.

If you've watched the television series it is important to note that there were adjustments to the timeline and events from the book (as always, got to make it more interesting for tv). It's been three years since Ali disappeared from a sleepover with her four best friends. Now it is right before the start of their junior year at Rosewood Day, a prestigious prep school, and the girls that were once inseparable are like strangers to one another. Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily are going about their lives, still haunted by the secrets that Ali held over their heads and embarking on adventures that they would hate for others to find out about.

'I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. -A'

Shepard did a good job isolating the four former friends throughout this book. You get a sense of each character, their complicated histories with Alison and each other, and their deepest secrets that Ali held over their heads. The girls don't really even interact with one another until the final ten pages of the book and it was charming to see the tension fall away as they took comfort in one another. We all have those friends that we drift apart from but when you reconnect it is like no time has passed, and for these girls they seem to have found home in one another. They are bound together by the past and the mysterious A that has been sending them threatening messages about the secrets no one but Alison knew.

'What if the texts were from Ali's ghost? [...] And spirits from the dead sometimes contacted the living to make amends, right? It was like their final homework assignment before graduating to heaven'

Of the changes from the book that the tv show made, the most apparent was to make the cast more diverse and appeal to a wider audience. The only characters of color in the book so far are Maya (black) and Wren (half Korean) in a very affluent, stereo-typically country club preppy town. I think that was an excellent choice. I am hoping that Emily's mother's apparent racism is challenged in the text in future books.

Overall I really enjoyed Pretty Little Liars and am excited to read the next book in the series. This is a light read but enjoyable, and you can tell that the story and mystery have been plotted well. This is a young adult book that handles some sensitive topics and also captures the feelings of being in the awkward teenage years. I'd recommend this for mid/upper YA readers based on the content of the book.

Representation: two characters of color (black, half-Korean), LGBT+ (f/f)
Content/trigger warnings: bulimia, cutting (referenced), racism ("I just don't see what you have in common with people like that," unchallenged so far), sexual situations, teacher/high school student relationship, underage drinking

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[readingwithwrin]

This is the first book in the Pretty Little Liars 14 books and 2 Novellas series! This one was a reread for me as I originally read this book after having marathoned the first two seasons of the tv show.

Alison, Aria, Spencer, Emily, and Hanna are five best friends who are also the mean girls at school. Yet it appears as time has gone on they have more that's going to tear them apart than they actually do in common anymore.
After what was supposed to be a sleepover one night Alison goes missing after getting into a fight with Spencer. With no one knowing where she went or who possibly took her after several years everyone is just trying to forget. The rest of the girls have split apart and created new friendships, but all of a sudden they are getting creepy notes, emails, and texts from an unknown person going by A who seems to know all of the secrets that Alison knew.


Overall I really did enjoy this series. After having watched the final episode of the tv show and not exactly being happy with it, I've decided to give the book series another try and to see if they are similar at all. So far they seem to be. Ezra was still just as creepy to me with the whole student-teacher relationship, just no not okay! Wren is still not a good guy in my opinion like so many people try to make him seem to be. As for the girls so far most is the same as what was in the show besides how some of them look, and I am completely okay with that change.

Now onto the next one!

[Katie King]

Not as good as Ali's Pretty Little Lies. Also, I started watching the show, so none of this was exactly a surprise. I'm not sure if I'll continue with the series because I hear it quickly goes off the deep end (like the show). It was okay, but like I said, I saw all of it coming because of the show. Note to self, read book first.

[angelarenea9]

I really didn't like that there were so many brands all through the book! The first half felt like one big advertisement. But other than that I really liked it especially because I didn't get to see the beginning of the TV series so I really didn't know the whole background (like Mona, I was just kinda like what's a Mona?) and stuff about all the people. That being said the books and the TV series seem really different. Like I saw some of the stuff in the first book when I was watching and I started really late into the show, but it was still the first book, but I already started the second book and stuff from that book happened already in the TV series too. (And out of order, like the stuff in the second book happened in the show before stuff in the first book happened) I know this is a review for the book not the tv show but I also know it was written to be a show not a book so.

[Stephanie]

Aria, Emily, Spencer, and Hanna all have their own secrets. Secrets that only one other person knows, and she's dead. But now their secrets are slowly being left as notes, text, or email to them after 3 years of trying to forget it. Someone else knows their secrets, and they are going to reveal them to everyone.

They all have this one shared secret. A pretty big secret that isn't really explained, and the little explanation there is just left me more confused. Then they all have their own secrets that no one else knows, besides their friend, Alison, who disappeared the summer before 8th grade. So their little secrets are safe, because the only other person who knows has been gone for almost 3 years.

I didn't really know what to expect when I picked up this book. I knew it was about secrets, that was about it. It was a good book, and I really enjoyed it, but there was something that didn't make me love it. Maybe because of how sad and miserable these girls were. So much is going on in there lives, that all happens within a week. It all just blows up, and it made me feel sad for these girls. It just has to be miserable to go through THAT. Especially in high school. Though, it is mostly their faults for getting in the mess that they are in.

The mystery was what kept me reading and I was generally surprised towards the end. All though I liked the book, I don't know if I'll be picking up the second book anytime soon.

[empressbrooke]

After getting addicted to the TV show this summer, I decided I needed to read the PLL books. The show follows the first book pretty faithfully with a few edits, and they're both quality guilty pleasures.