Pretty Little Liars #14: Deadly

** spoiler alert ** This is the fourteenth book in the Pretty Little Liars book series and the second book in the fourth story arc. One by one, the girls' worst deeds come out, and their worlds come crashing down around them. Spencer gets kicked out of Princeton. Hanna gets kicked out of her dad's campaign, and his heart. Emily gets kicked to the curb. And Aria may get kicked out of the country. The girls are the lowest they've ever been. They've lost everything. But A is not done yet. I love that we got a glimpse of Alison and her accomplice escaping the burning house the night she tried to kill the liars at the climax of Wanted. This book made me realize that the author didn’t give the girls a good enough reason not to go to their families or the police during the events of the second half of the series when they realized that A was back. I understand that the girls have secrets and are traumatized and probably fell back into old habits, but the author should have created a bigger and better reason for the girls not to ask for help this time around. They kept saying “someone might get hurt” as justification for not coming clean about everything, but by this point in the series, people were already getting hurt, and killed. Despite feeling like this, I was able to suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy these newer books in the series. I liked when the girls finally came clean and started to cooperate with the FBI. I liked how Spencer took charge and tried to get a deal to protect the girls in exchange for their cooperation with the FBI. I love Spencer coming clean to Melissa and how they bonded, and I loved how they acknowledged that Alison is their half-sister. I liked how this book brought all the liars down to their lowest points. Seeing how Emily’s family imploded because of A was so sad, and it also made me realize how effective Alison was at taking down the girls. I liked how A’s strategy and manipulations were outrageous but clever. I remarked that certain plot points in the final eight books have been ridiculous and outlandish, but the author’s willingness to embrace unconventional and outlandish plot points made for a stronger story in this instance. Chase’s character really let me down in this book, especially after he just won me over in the previous book, and I feel like the author had to somehow make Spencer lose his support to raise the stakes so the author just made him kind of insensitive and weakly wrote him off. Mike’s character may have been a shallow pervert in previous books, but I loved how loyal he was in this book to his sister and the girls. Melissa’s character also really stepped up for the girls in this book. I loved seeing Melissa take Spencer’s side and support her throughout this book. I was surprised to see that they reintroduced Nick in this book as a reveal when he was only ever introduced in the prequel book. I found it disappointing because I don’t think most readers knew that the prequel was so important to the overall series. However, the one part of the Nick reveal that I really like is that it is revealed that Nick had many different aliases and knew all the girls (including Iris) as a different person at one point, and he has been manipulating events and working for Alison the entire time. I liked this part of the reveal, I just wish that it was written better and that the prequel novel was marketed as a necessary part of the overall story and a must-read. I’m glad that I read the prequel so that this reveal was effective for me, but I’m curious if there are readers out there that skipped the prequel and was confused or diss appointed with this reveal. There’s a moment where Hanna noticed that she should have figured out that Nick was Olaf and the same bartender from the night of her car crash, but this is quickly hand-waved away for sake of plot convenience; Hanna probably didn’t notice because she was drunk. Despite all of this, I liked the Nick and Alison reveal, because their dynamic felt much like a Ghostface killer and accomplice dynamic from the Scream movies. I liked the concept of mastermind Alison covered with burns from the fire from Wanted. This book, like the previous one, proved that the books in the fourth arc are much better than any of the book in the third arc. I liked the individual storylines and main storyline in this book, and it left me excited to see where the story goes next.

Its all beginning to wrap up...

i WANT THE NEXT ONE! so many twists! such a good book :)

What the what!?!? Are you kidding me!?!? Major "I-never-saw-that-coming" moments in this one. I cannot wait for the next one to come out, but overall I have to say that this series is overdue for the true finale.