Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Book #19 for 2015
PopSugar Challenge Criteria Met:
-A book set in high school
-A book based on or turned into a TV show
-A book written by someone under 30
-A popular author’s first book
As I write this, there are still about two weeks left in 2015. However, I will be mightily surprised if I read anything in that time that could beat this out for my “Stinker of the Year” award. I started reading it because I found the show (the first few seasons I watched before Netflix quit carrying it, at least) entertaining. (Thank you for that guilty pleasure, Rebecca.) Had it not been for the PopSugar challenge bonanza noted above, though, I would have dropped it like a hot potato, or more accurately, like a steaming pile of excrement.
The characters are far more engaging in the show, and the show has a really good mysterious creep factor that is completely missing in the book. The show is also able to display the teen fashion elements, so that a frumpy, middle-aged lady like me can admire them quietly without caring about who is wearing whom. In the book, Shepard simply recites lists of expensive designers I DON’T FREAKING CARE ABOUT, which is really quite boring. The show also mixes it up by bringing in characters with diverse backgrounds, which suggests that Rosewood is a public school in the show, whereas the book’s Rosewood Day severely limits this range by allowing only wealthy, conformist characters.
And you call that an ending??? FFS. Had it not been an Overdrive audiobook on my phone, I’d probably have thrown it across the room. Thank goodness I borrowed it from the library, and it is their problem now. (Pssst…if anybody with the appropriate access is reading this…if your finger were to suddenly “slip” on this book’s delete button, the literary world would be ever so grateful.)
Exploding Steamboats 