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morganjenn14's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
vanessa177's review against another edition
3.0
I take back any complaints that I have ever made about the alternating chapters of the other books. If the stories were arranged in the normal style, I might be rating this a five. I started this before Christmas, but I didn't finish it until nearly February.
I just thought this book was kind of adorable. For once, Aria actually might have the best plot. Aria's story is ridiculous, but it is actually played for humor. I actually really liked Emily and Hanna's stories, too. Emily's felt like a PG-13 rated entry of Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries. Hanna's was depressing and Hanna-y. There could have been a lot more Mike. The only one that I kind of disliked is Spencer's. It is a little too much of a rehash of the usual Pretty Little Liars story elements. It was mostly just setting up later stories, and it kept up the annoying trend of older guys being wonderful, unless they are older than some arbitrarily decided age. By the end of it, I was feeling pretty nostalgic for the older stories.
I just thought this book was kind of adorable. For once, Aria actually might have the best plot. Aria's story is ridiculous, but it is actually played for humor. I actually really liked Emily and Hanna's stories, too. Emily's felt like a PG-13 rated entry of Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries. Hanna's was depressing and Hanna-y. There could have been a lot more Mike.
Spoiler
Imagine Mike attending Aria's wedding, dancing with Cher, and helping Aria dodge panthers on her way to annul her marriage. It just got 100X better.ihateprozac's review against another edition
1.0
Good fucking God this book was ridiculous, even by Pretty Little Liars standards. The original premise was farfetched and the books have grown more ridiculous as the series has progressed, but Pretty Little Secrets was something else entirely.
The title of this book is misleading. It should have been called "4 ludicrous tales of the Pretty Little Liars, all somehow linked by the shitty fictional drink Amino Spa". That's literally all it is: 4 utterly ludicrous and farfetched tales of Winter Break that occur independently of one another, yet somehow all feature the fictional drink Amino Spa. Were it not a fictional drink, you'd think Sara Shepard had been paid by the company to pimp out their product, given how it's not-so-subtly thrust in the readers' face.
In the first tale Hanna learns of Amino Spa while attending a fitness retreat at her local gym. The hot personal trainer leading the course has been suckered in to selling the stuff, and after she fails to steal him from a rival girl in the bootcamp, Hanna sneakily signs up said girl as an Amino Spa seller and orders cratefuls of the stuff.
Emily witnesses said trainer and girl desperately trying to hock their product at a kiosk in the mall. Aria sees the product advertised while on a short stay in Atlantic City. Spencer's Dad tries the stuff while on vacation, and after Spencer's fling with a local tennis star goes awry she taints his stash with Viagra before a big match. While I generally enjoy movies where storylines converge around a central event such that unrelated characters unknowingly cross paths, using a weird fictional drink to do so is just.....weird.
The storylines themselves are not much better. Hanna's is the most realistic of the bunch: she signs up for a gym bootcamp after finding she's piled on a few pounds over Winter break. She's also feeling insecure that boyfriend Lucas bailed to the Yucatan with a slutty family friend, so she tries to compete for her hot trainer's attention against another girl in the bootcamp. Hanna is forced to endure Isabel and Kate's "12 Days of Christmas" in spite of being Jewish, and manages to blackmail Kate with pictures of her making out with Santa at the local mall.
Said Santa is fired for being an utter sleazeball, and this is where Emily's story comes into play. Emily's mother signs her up as the replacement Santa, so Emily can spy on the "elves" that have supposedly been wreaking havoc and stealing Christmas decorations all over town. Yeah you read that right, EMILY is the replacement Santa. *eyeroll* Emily legitimately befriends the girls, only to be ambushed by her mother and the local authorities in the midst of a Christmas prank. Fortunately Emily has some blackmail material on a local cop and she gets the girls out scot free. They forgive her for spying on them and return her mother's stolen Christmas decoration.
After Byron invites morning sickness-ridden Meredith on their "family" Christmas holiday to a local ski lodge, Aria decides she can't handle it and bails back to Rosewood for the holidays. Aria's ex-boyfriend from Iceland just happens to turn up on her doorstep, claiming that he's fled the country to avoid prosecution for peacefully protesting the demolition of a puffin sanctuary. Aria does what all normal teens would do and suggests they get MARRIED so that Hallbjorn can stay in the USA forever.
Aria forges a marriage certificate and they elope to Atlantic City where things rapidly fall apart. Hallbjorn is arrested for unleashing an abused pair of magician's panthers, and Aria learns that he was actually on the run for BOMBING a building in protest. Aria annuls the marriage and flees back to Rosewood, praying that what happens in Atlantic City stays in Atlantic City.
Spencer spends her holiday in the Florida heat where she competes against Melissa for the attention of a local college tennis star. Things between Melissa and Spencer are strained as it is, as the novella takes place shortly after Spencer's accusations land Ian Thomas in jail. Things only get worse when the sisters compete for the same boy's attention! Both end up getting burned as they learn he's not the young manwhore he appeared to be; he's middle aged and blatantly cheating on the wife and mother of his child.
Like I said, the stories are utterly fucking ridiculous, even by Sara Shepard's standards. Spencer and Hanna's stories are farfetched but still fairly believable, and Emily's story is believable if you ignore the fact that they hired a REDHEADED FEMALE AS SANTA. But Aria's story is off the fucking charts. She happens to be spending the holidays in Rosewood alone, reminiscing on how great her fling was with Hallbjorn Gunterson when he randomly pops up on the doorstep.
She seriously considers marrying him for visa purposes, eloping to Atlantic City and buying a ring, dress, and forging Ella's signature on the marriage certificate. We already know from the chronology of the book that the marriage didn't work out, but it fails in such a spectacularly retarded fashion that Sara Shepard almost deserves a medal. Aria's hopes and dreams are shattered when her husband is arrested for freeing panthers from a magician's garage. But if that wasn't ridiculous enough, it's then revealed that he's an ecoterrorist on the run for planting a BOMB in the building. Aria was a teenage bridge married to an international ecoterrorist. Digest that.
Overview: There are no words to describe the sheer ridiculousness of this text. The books were always a quick, fun, trashy read, but I'm almost ashamed to say I've read this. It's not even good enough to read like a parody; it reads as if Sara Shepard wrote it while blind drunk, rolling around in piles of money as she dictates the novel to a chimpanzee on a typewriter. That's how obscene it is.
Save yourself the muscle strain from repeated eye rolling and head shaking, and just read [b:Ali's Pretty Little Lies|14813667|Ali's Pretty Little Lies (Pretty Little Liars, #0.5)|Sara Shepard|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1351597124s/14813667.jpg|20467130] instead.
The title of this book is misleading. It should have been called "4 ludicrous tales of the Pretty Little Liars, all somehow linked by the shitty fictional drink Amino Spa". That's literally all it is: 4 utterly ludicrous and farfetched tales of Winter Break that occur independently of one another, yet somehow all feature the fictional drink Amino Spa. Were it not a fictional drink, you'd think Sara Shepard had been paid by the company to pimp out their product, given how it's not-so-subtly thrust in the readers' face.
In the first tale Hanna learns of Amino Spa while attending a fitness retreat at her local gym. The hot personal trainer leading the course has been suckered in to selling the stuff, and after she fails to steal him from a rival girl in the bootcamp, Hanna sneakily signs up said girl as an Amino Spa seller and orders cratefuls of the stuff.
Emily witnesses said trainer and girl desperately trying to hock their product at a kiosk in the mall. Aria sees the product advertised while on a short stay in Atlantic City. Spencer's Dad tries the stuff while on vacation, and after Spencer's fling with a local tennis star goes awry she taints his stash with Viagra before a big match. While I generally enjoy movies where storylines converge around a central event such that unrelated characters unknowingly cross paths, using a weird fictional drink to do so is just.....weird.
The storylines themselves are not much better. Hanna's is the most realistic of the bunch: she signs up for a gym bootcamp after finding she's piled on a few pounds over Winter break. She's also feeling insecure that boyfriend Lucas bailed to the Yucatan with a slutty family friend, so she tries to compete for her hot trainer's attention against another girl in the bootcamp. Hanna is forced to endure Isabel and Kate's "12 Days of Christmas" in spite of being Jewish, and manages to blackmail Kate with pictures of her making out with Santa at the local mall.
Said Santa is fired for being an utter sleazeball, and this is where Emily's story comes into play. Emily's mother signs her up as the replacement Santa, so Emily can spy on the "elves" that have supposedly been wreaking havoc and stealing Christmas decorations all over town. Yeah you read that right, EMILY is the replacement Santa. *eyeroll* Emily legitimately befriends the girls, only to be ambushed by her mother and the local authorities in the midst of a Christmas prank. Fortunately Emily has some blackmail material on a local cop and she gets the girls out scot free. They forgive her for spying on them and return her mother's stolen Christmas decoration.
After Byron invites morning sickness-ridden Meredith on their "family" Christmas holiday to a local ski lodge, Aria decides she can't handle it and bails back to Rosewood for the holidays. Aria's ex-boyfriend from Iceland just happens to turn up on her doorstep, claiming that he's fled the country to avoid prosecution for peacefully protesting the demolition of a puffin sanctuary. Aria does what all normal teens would do and suggests they get MARRIED so that Hallbjorn can stay in the USA forever.
Aria forges a marriage certificate and they elope to Atlantic City where things rapidly fall apart. Hallbjorn is arrested for unleashing an abused pair of magician's panthers, and Aria learns that he was actually on the run for BOMBING a building in protest. Aria annuls the marriage and flees back to Rosewood, praying that what happens in Atlantic City stays in Atlantic City.
Spencer spends her holiday in the Florida heat where she competes against Melissa for the attention of a local college tennis star. Things between Melissa and Spencer are strained as it is, as the novella takes place shortly after Spencer's accusations land Ian Thomas in jail. Things only get worse when the sisters compete for the same boy's attention! Both end up getting burned as they learn he's not the young manwhore he appeared to be; he's middle aged and blatantly cheating on the wife and mother of his child.
Like I said, the stories are utterly fucking ridiculous, even by Sara Shepard's standards. Spencer and Hanna's stories are farfetched but still fairly believable, and Emily's story is believable if you ignore the fact that they hired a REDHEADED FEMALE AS SANTA. But Aria's story is off the fucking charts. She happens to be spending the holidays in Rosewood alone, reminiscing on how great her fling was with Hallbjorn Gunterson when he randomly pops up on the doorstep.
She seriously considers marrying him for visa purposes, eloping to Atlantic City and buying a ring, dress, and forging Ella's signature on the marriage certificate. We already know from the chronology of the book that the marriage didn't work out, but it fails in such a spectacularly retarded fashion that Sara Shepard almost deserves a medal. Aria's hopes and dreams are shattered when her husband is arrested for freeing panthers from a magician's garage. But if that wasn't ridiculous enough, it's then revealed that he's an ecoterrorist on the run for planting a BOMB in the building. Aria was a teenage bridge married to an international ecoterrorist. Digest that.
Overview: There are no words to describe the sheer ridiculousness of this text. The books were always a quick, fun, trashy read, but I'm almost ashamed to say I've read this. It's not even good enough to read like a parody; it reads as if Sara Shepard wrote it while blind drunk, rolling around in piles of money as she dictates the novel to a chimpanzee on a typewriter. That's how obscene it is.
Save yourself the muscle strain from repeated eye rolling and head shaking, and just read [b:Ali's Pretty Little Lies|14813667|Ali's Pretty Little Lies (Pretty Little Liars, #0.5)|Sara Shepard|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1351597124s/14813667.jpg|20467130] instead.
lovemydolphins's review against another edition
2.0
I feel like this book had so much potential. But instead, it just fell flat.
Each girl has her own winter break story that comes with resolution. While the stories weren't bad, I think that it was simply lacking any connection with the main series. No A notes, nothing. It's supposed to be from A's point of view though. I mean, that alone sounds interesting, right? I figured it would be an amazing perspective.
How wrong I was.
The stories are just told from a 3rd person perspective (like the regular books), with a little "letter" from A to the reader at the end of each section. The letters say things like "Emily was a naughty girl this year!" Nothing is actually done by A, in terms of revealing secrets or sabotage. And there's no A perspective. I was expecting the writing to be something along the lines of, "I followed Spencer until she reached the club. I positioned myself to get a good view of her from the trees. Then I got an idea. I threw a stick at her. She turned around, scared. I ran away with a giggle." Something kind of spy-like, you know?
Nope. Just a book of winter break stories. Not really any action.
Each girl has her own winter break story that comes with resolution. While the stories weren't bad, I think that it was simply lacking any connection with the main series. No A notes, nothing. It's supposed to be from A's point of view though. I mean, that alone sounds interesting, right? I figured it would be an amazing perspective.
How wrong I was.
The stories are just told from a 3rd person perspective (like the regular books), with a little "letter" from A to the reader at the end of each section. The letters say things like "Emily was a naughty girl this year!" Nothing is actually done by A, in terms of revealing secrets or sabotage. And there's no A perspective. I was expecting the writing to be something along the lines of, "I followed Spencer until she reached the club. I positioned myself to get a good view of her from the trees. Then I got an idea. I threw a stick at her. She turned around, scared. I ran away with a giggle." Something kind of spy-like, you know?
Nope. Just a book of winter break stories. Not really any action.
aalleia's review against another edition
2.0
Didn’t even know there were .5 books in the series! Only found out when I came across a Reddit post, which just so happened to be while I was reading the fourth book, so good timing LOL
Only reading about one of the girls’ lives made it a slightly less exciting read, considering the way the chapters were laid out
Overall, it’s pretty alright, glimpsing further into each girl’s life... just nothing really exciting. I guess this one was something like a bonus/filler book.
The use of notable characters for reference and addressing the actual characters is kinda cute, like Squidward and Humpty Dumpty!!
Character: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Setting: 3/5
Style: 2.5/5
Theme & Symbolism: 2/5
Recommendation: 2/5
Overall: 2.4/5
Only reading about one of the girls’ lives made it a slightly less exciting read, considering the way the chapters were laid out
Overall, it’s pretty alright, glimpsing further into each girl’s life... just nothing really exciting. I guess this one was something like a bonus/filler book.
The use of notable characters for reference and addressing the actual characters is kinda cute, like Squidward and Humpty Dumpty!!
Character: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Setting: 3/5
Style: 2.5/5
Theme & Symbolism: 2/5
Recommendation: 2/5
Overall: 2.4/5
lucyphilpott's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
sharonsm_28's review against another edition
3.0
This book contains for short stories about each of the liars. However, it did not engage me as the other books had. That is way I gave it a 3/5. Most of the stories was boring and did not connect with me. The only story I liked was Spencer. Maybe it is because it has humor and I love her character!
brooke_holcombe's review against another edition
3.0
“You better watch out. You better not cry.” -Santa Claus is Coming to Town
2.5 rounded up to 3 for this holiday edition of PLL. This book is more a collection of 4 short stories (1 for each main character) about what they did during the winter break between junior and senior year. Eh, not the best in the series. This book lacked excitement and a few of the stories felt very predictable. I feel like this book was just made as a fill-in and added a lot of fluff instead of adding to the world that is PLL. The so called 'secrets' in this book weren't a big deal, which was slightly annoying given the title. But still, it was somewhat entertaining; I mean, you can't really get tired of this series- it's addicting.
2.5 rounded up to 3 for this holiday edition of PLL. This book is more a collection of 4 short stories (1 for each main character) about what they did during the winter break between junior and senior year. Eh, not the best in the series. This book lacked excitement and a few of the stories felt very predictable. I feel like this book was just made as a fill-in and added a lot of fluff instead of adding to the world that is PLL. The so called 'secrets' in this book weren't a big deal, which was slightly annoying given the title. But still, it was somewhat entertaining; I mean, you can't really get tired of this series- it's addicting.
princesalorena's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
lzcvgdn's review against another edition
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25