World Famous Comics: Pretty Little Liars #4: Unbelievable (Pretty Little Liars)
Pretty Little Liars #4: Unbelievable (Pretty Little Liars)
By: Sara Shepard Publisher: HarperTeen Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: HarperTeen Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 352 Publication Date: June 01, 2008 Reading Level: Young Adult Release Date: May 27, 2008
Behind Rosewood's grand façades, where the air smells like apples and Chanel No. 5 and infinity pools sparkle in landscaped backyards, nothing is as it seems. It was here, back in seventh grade, that five best friends shared everything—Seven jeans, MAC makeup, and their deepest, darkest secrets. For Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily, it was a dream come true . . . until Alison, the most beautiful of them all, suddenly vanished.
Now someone named A has turned their charmed lives into a living nightmare. Emily has been shipped off to her hyper-conservative cousins in Iowa. Aria is stuck living with her dad and his home-wrecker girlfriend. And Spencer fears she had something to do with Alison's murder. But Hanna's fate is far worse than all of that—she's clinging to life in the hospital, because she knew too much.
With A's threats turning dangerous and Ali's killer still on the loose, the girls must uncover the truth—about A, about Ali, and about what happened to Hanna—before they become A's next victims. But as they unravel Rosewood's mysteries and secrets, will it bring an end to the horror . . . or is this just the beginning?
Courtesy of Teens Read Too Spencer, Hanna, Aria, and Emily are back, some in a better state than others, and ready to bring down A. When we last left the pristine Rosewood, Hanna had just discovered who A was, but she knew too much and A made sure she couldn't say anything by "accidentally" hitting her with a car. Now, as Hanna fights for her life, the other three girls have to clean up the mess that A has made.
Spencer finally remembers what happened the night of Ali's death and what she remembers isn't good. Could she really have killed Ali? Not only does she have to deal with the thought that she could have really killed her best friend, but she's got to reason with the guilt of stealing her sister's AP Economics paper, which got Spencer nominated for an award her sister should have won. With the feeling that A is constantly breathing down her back, will Spencer be able to keep her cool composure, or will she finally pop?
After A let it leak that Emily likes girls, Emily's been living on the edge of sanity. Her parents don't know what to do with her, so they send her off to her ultra-conservative relatives in Middle of Nowhere, Iowa. When she arrives, Emily knows she won't last long -- then she meets Trista, an interesting girl who seems to understand Emily and doesn't mind talking to her. Will Emily last, or will she flee back to Rosewood and hope that she is accepted by those who love her most?
Aria's been kicked out of her mother's house after her mom found out she had been keeping the fact of her father's affair a secret for the past three years. Once again, we have A to thank for unveiling this bit of information. With nowhere else to go, Aria moves in with her father and his horrifyingly peppy girlfriend, Meredith. All Aria wants is for her life to go back to normal. When she starts an art class over at the neighborhood college her partner is none other than Jenna Cavanaugh, the girl who was the terrible victim of a nasty prank that Aria was a part of. Can Aria ever escape her past or will it keep catching up with her?
Then there's Hanna, who really is hanging on for dear life. She can't remember anything from the night of the accident, especially the identity of A. The rest of the group doesn't want to pressure her too much, but they really want to know who A is. If this isn't enough, Hanna has to deal with her feelings for Lucas. She remembers hanging out with him a couple of times, but that's it. It seems, though, that a lot more happened. Will Hanna be able to get her memory back and solve the mystery of who A really is?
PRETTY LITTLE LIARS has always been a favorite series of mine. I mean, who can resist the scandalous secrets of others, especially of those who live in Rosewood? UNBELIAVALBLE completely blew all three of the previous books out of the water. It could almost be a stand-alone book if all the information we learn in the preceding books wasn't crucial to the plot.
It seems that the author finally became comfortable with the characters in this book. They felt like real people and some of their issues became more realistic. I also felt that it was much easier to relate the characters in this installment. They didn't seem as stuck up and it was easier to like them. In my opinion, this is a particularly important part of a book, because if you can't relate then it's hard to actually imagine the feelings that the characters in the story have. While I think this was a weakness in the other books, the author has completely redeemed herself with this addition to the series.
The plot itself was great. Suspense has a totally different meaning to me now! At no point did I find myself knowing what would come next. I eagerly turned the pages hoping to devour more secrets and uncover more answers. The author did a great job hanging the identity of A over our heads until the final chapters of the book. And just as you thought you knew who killed Ali, wham!, the author threw another curveball at you. Before I had even started the book I had known that A would be uncovered in this book and was truly wondering how the story would continue afterwards, as there will be a total of eight books. I found that as some answers were told more questions surfaced. Again, the author left us with too many questions left unanswered.
Now I simply cannot wait for the fifth book. In the meantime, I urge you to pick up UNBELIEVABLE, as it is simply impossible to put it down.
Reviewed by: Tasha
The end... This review will be as spoiler-free as I can make it, also I'm writing about the series as a whole, not just book 4.
Okay guys, I'm not gonna lie, I LOVED the first three books: Pretty Little Liars Pretty Little Liars #2: Flawless (Pretty Little Liars) Pretty Little Liars #3: Perfect (Pretty Little Liars) you MUST read each of these books in order or the story wont make any sense. The first three books set up a murder/stalker mystery that gets solved at the end of this 4th book.
There are 4 main characters/storylines that are interconnected with each other and unlike other teen series where there is one star and several back-up dancers, in this book Sara Shepard makes sure that all 4 of her main characters get equal time and interesting storylines. Each of the 4 girls could have held her own in her own book just with the backstory, auxillary characters and the plot that Sara gave her. Sara gives her characters real depth and flaws so that you can't really love them or hate them but you still wanna know what they're gonna do next.
I'll be honest, even though I'm giving this final book 5 stars, I was a bit disappointed at the ending. I suppose I was expecting something spectacular and way over the top (OMG ALISON COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD! LOL j/k) the payoff just wasn't where I personally wanted it to be, but then again I was literally speed-reading to get to the ending so, I think I will change my mind once I sit down and read all 4 books again in a row.
I've been with this series since PLL#1 came out in 2006 and it was an unbearable wait between books. I always had to pre-order them to make sure I got them the moment they came out and I have them all in hard cover. They are very colorful and pretty, if it means anything, they look nice on your bookshelf.
Usually I'm very blabbly and spoilery in my reviews so I'm sorry that I'm not being like that in this one, I just don't wanna ruin the ending for you guys! I wouldn't write a review at all but I gotta give this series 5 stars and give Sara Shepard her props, it's kept me interested and excited since 2006 and that's pretty tough!
I hope Sara keeps writing and comes out with an even better series soon and I hope this review was at least a little bit helpful for you.
Truly Un-Believe-Able I can't believe someone so close to Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Spencer could really be doing this. A's identidy is really unexpected, just one of those characters you overlook but its how she knows all those things about the girls that the past 3 books in this series started to make since. Ali's killer is also a shocker and even though they say it was this , I'm not so sure. In this 4th book in this suspenseful series you find A's true identity and then she ****, you learn the truth about Jenna C., you learn Ali's killer, and your continued to Wicked the next book in the series. With Perfect endeing in such a suspensful heart wrenching way, I couldn't wait to pick up Unbeliveable and solve this mess but honestly, the mess only gets bigger...
Amazing book When I recieved this book in the mail, I finished it within 3 hours! If you have not read the Pretty Little Liars series, you definatley should. They are absolutely amazing books!
the most suspenseful in the series so far I have been following this series ever since I read the first book, and admittedly, I've read all of the books several times, trying to figure out the identity of "a"/Ali's killer, and hadn't figured it out, no matter how hard I tried to put all the clues together, because the author does an excellent job of throwing you off. That is the thing I love most about these books, the fact that it keeps you in suspense from start till finish, as the author adds more and more to the storyline. So of course, I eagerly awaited the release of novel #4, and was happy to see that this one was the most suspenseful one yet. I finished this one a few hours after having purchased it, literally not being able to put it down. So many new details and secrets are revealed, one having to do with the "accident" that the main characters had been keeping a secret for years. I never in a million years would have guessed the thing that the character of Jenna revealed in this book!
There were only two things disappointing about this book. #1 was the identity of the mysterious "A" being revealed. Now obviously I had already known that this book would finally reveal who it was, but about mid-way through the book, I easily figured out who it was, despite the fact that the author cleverly tries to throw you off, but fails to do so. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, I mean come on!
The second disappointing thing was the identity of Ali's supposed killer. Now hopefully this isn't the actual person, because if it is, the motive that ****** had to do so was seriously lame, and would definitely lower my standards of this book series.
The book also leaves you with more questions than answers, especially the ending, so if you thought that this was the conclusion, you are definitely wrong because there are still many, many loose ends that need to be tied up. One huge question still remains: is Ali actually dead?
All in all, it was definitely a good book, and I obviously can't wait for the 5th one to be released. Hopefully it will wrap everything up once and for all!
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