Burned (Pretty Little Liars, #12)

by Sara Shepard

[clementine]

I was sure this was supposed to be the last in the series, but apparently Shepard is milking it for all it's worth, because more have now been tacked on. Ah well, I guess I can't complain; this guilty pleasure has been sustaining me since I was 13 and apparently will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Any sympathy I may have had for these cardboard protagonists has completely leaked away. They keep getting themselves into ridiculous situations that only prove how stupid, shallow, unsympathetic, and generally awful they are. They have no personalities outside of being vapid, holier than thou, unpleasant, and oblivious.

The first few books in this series at least somewhat had their own plots. The later books, however, are extremely repetitive and predictable down to every last heavily foreshadowed plot twist. It used to be that these books would be pretty addictive to read even when the quality was obviously not up to par, but now they're just tedious. I rolled my eyes the entire way through this book. From the after school special subplots meant to make the characters seem deeper to the fact that I predicted literally EVERY "twist" that occurred, it was just awful.