The Problem With Pretty Little Liars

Most of you are probably familiar with either the Pretty Little Liars TV show or the original book series. Maybe you've read the reviews I did on the first couple of books I did on the series. And maybe you're wondering why I've only done two.

Every series has a "thing", something that makes it really good, something that makes in unteresting and gets you hooked and makes you remember the quotes and the characters. Maybe, like with Cassie Clare's books, it's the emotion in the books. Or maybe it's like The Hunger Games, with facinating yet slightly horrifying violence and a depressing, yet appealing, view on life. Pretty Little Liars has a Thing too.

Even when you can predict how things are going to turn out, even when you can tell yourself that you know something won't end well, there's always that what if I'm wrong? That makes you keep reading. The drama, even if you know it's silly, is entertaining. The sheer craziness of the things that happen to the characters, the way that the vast majority - if not everything - in the book would never happen in real life, is so unlike the real world that you need to know what happens next.

Besides, we get some sick delight about seeing all the girls' bad luck. It's a human thing.

Have any of you read the Canterwood Crest series? I'm sure some of you have, at least when you were younger. Pretty Little Liars is like a less realistic, more morbid version of that.

But the main reason I'm writing this is that the books' Thing masks something crucial: all the books are pretty much the same. When you get over how eager and entranced the Thing makes you, convincing you that you love the series, you get that the books are all the same idea: crazy things happen to the girls, they have some secrets they want to hide, they get blackmailed, someone is the new A and we're promised that they're the worst yet, etc. And on the side, we get some filler stuff, all petty (if entertaining) teen drama that, although it packs some fat onto those skinny books, doesn't really serve any purpose. (You may have noticed that from the reviews I've done with the books.) There really isn't a ton to say about the series. I mean, you'd be repeating yourself.

So I can't do every book. The last book, Vicious, came out recently, and I'll probably say something on it when I finish it. But until then All's going to be quiet on the Pretty Little Liars front. It's not a bad series, don't get me wrong. Books can be good for all sorts of reasons, and Pretty Little Liars is good because it's dramatic and petty. It passes the time and it's entertaining. But that doesn't mean I'm going to talk about them. :)

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