Vicious [Pretty Little Liars #16]

In Rosewood, Pennsylvania, reporters are lined up outside the historic courthouse, typing furiously at their iPhones with freshly manicured nails. Because the trial of the century is happening right here in Rosewood: the four pretty little liars have been accused of killing Alison DiLaurentis. Only Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily know that they've been framed. Ali is still out there, laughing as she watches the girls go down for her murder. But when your nickname includes the word "liar," no one believes you're telling the truth. . . . Aria tries to run away from it all but finds that life on the lam is even harder than life as a liar. Spencer gets in touch with someone who can help her disappear--but when a guy from her past reemerges, Spencer no longer knows what she wants. Hanna decides that she'll hear wedding bells chime before she serves time. And in the face of prison, Emily does something truly drastic--something that will change her friends' lives forever. As the trial goes on and the outcome looks grim, the girls are in their darkest hour yet. But maybe they can finally figure out how to beat Ali at her own game. Because once upon a time, she was just a pretty little liar too

Vicious takes place not that far after Toxic ended. We get a glimpse of a triumphant if not slightly...changed Ali (Apparently, she's gained some weight, dyed her hair and fucked up her skin all in the name of hiding who she really is) gloating over the success of her plan. she watches in the news in her hideaway with someone whose identity isn't revealed til the end of the book. But it's also pretty damn obvious. Ali recalls the same details we all already know about her previous crime and her fake diary and what not (P.S. what the fuck kind of captor lets their kidnappee write in a journal? That makes no damn sense. Gone Girl much?)

The first scene of the novel opens with the hopelessness of the Liar's case. They have lost everything. Hanna lost her movie deal and invitation to go to the Fashion Institute in New York. Spencer's bully blog as become a wasteland and her acceptance to Princeton revolved, Aria is no longer a sought after artist. They have gone through a feat of lawyers and none of them believe that Ali is alive or setting them up. Even the guy they have now who got mafia bosses out of murder charges doesn't think he can help them.

Emily can't take it. The girl has officially gone coo-coo for cocoa puffs.

She is seeing and hearing Ali everywhere, she has officially gone off her rocker. She suggests to everyone that they don't give up the search to find Ali because at this point,bringing back the dead girl is the only way of saving their asses from frying.

With jail never looking as real as now, Spencer starts taking How to Survive in Jail lessons from a tutor who tells her the only way someone like her is going to survive is if she avoid jail time. And if she can't do that in the jail system then she has a way to buy a new identity and help her get out town...for a high price. As rich as her family is, Spencer doesn't have that kind of change. So she and her friends decide to visit Ali's crazy, dissed and not really missed, ex boyfriend, Nick.

That trip quickly becomes a waste of time. The only thing Nick really says is that he doesn't think Ali's dead, he isn't sure if she's using more of his families property to hide out, however he does get mighty bull-hurt when Emily lies and says Ali told her he meant nothing to her, and she really loved her all along. Using the information Nick gave them, Emily finds one of his families places that no one has checked out in Cape May. Emily convinces her friends to go off to the coast to check it out. But of course the place turns out to be a dead in.

Heartbroken and finally giving in to their fate, the girls decide to stay for the night not realizing that something is wrong with Emily. And something is wrong indeed. After all it was only the last book that the girl tried to kill herself. And it doesn't take long for her to return to her roots. She scribbles a note to her friends then takes to the sea.

While Spencer and the others catch on, but by the time they arrive, it's too late, Emily gives her self to the sea as the hurricane reaches land. Spencer stupidly tries to dive in after her but she is no match for them waves. She quickly passes out as Emily's head disappears under the waves.

When Spencer comes to, she's in the hospital getting yelled at by an officer and no one is answering her questions about Emily. Finally she finds out that Emily's body hasn't been recovered, her doctor is the guy she gave her virginity to and Emily has been deemed Lost At Sea.

Next thing we know, we're at Emily's funeral where her family is subtly blaming the rest of her friends for leading her on the wrong path and refusing to let her speak. This leads to a huge fight between the remaining Liars as Hanna and Spencer duke it out as Hanna blames Emily's death on her.

Pretty quickly after all this, Aria is like, "Fuck this! I'm out! Peace!"

She kisses her boyfriend goodbye before catching a plane to France leaving Spencer and Hanna to mourn and fend for themselves.

Hanna spends the night with Mike, and in the next morning they have a fight when he claims that he's going to wait for Hanna even if she goes to jail.

Okay, Mike, whatever you need to tell yourself at night. It's a pretty thought but your ass likes ass and sex too much to wait for Hanna for some 20+ years.

But then he surprises me by taking Hanna's very logical questions as ultimatum to prove his love and responds with:

He very obviously doesn't have a ring, so he gives her his lacrosse bracelet, and says they can marry before she goes away to the slammer.

And Hanna...says yes. (Falm palm.)

This is just going to make it so much harder on the both of you when Hanna does go away because now you have to get a divorce. But no one listens to me!

Both Hanna and Mike's parents give the okay and they immediately start planning the Red Carpet Wedding of the Series before they get taken to jail for life. It is somewhere during this mess that it is realized that Aria has flown the coup. You would think this would bring Hanna and Spencer closer together but all the bad words (not blood, words) between them keeps them apart.

Meanwhile, Aria hops across the seas to Paris. On the way there she pitifully thinks she sees Emily, but it's someone else. From there she runs to the place that she and the Nick-she-knew (was it Phineas?) stole that painting all that time ago. And much to her (and my surprise) is is waiting for her but her boyfriend, Noel himself.

They are happy for a while until her old insecurities about Ali come up, her paranoia about being found and a huge fight that ends with them both getting caught by Interpol and their asses being hauled back to the United States.

Back home, Hanna is happily planning her wedding. She invites her stepsister, Katie, but happily calls her dad and tells him that his ass is not invited. Go Hanna!

And Spencer is now contemplating flying the coup as she and Wren reconnect. Now that she and Melissa have a good relationship, she refuses to let him back into her life. However, Wren wants her so bad, he goes and talks to her sister to get her blessing. She gives it and Spencer gives into him.

Noel and Aria arrive back in the States just in time for Hanna's wedding. The remaining three make up then become Hanna's bridesmaids. Also, her dad shows up and begs for her to allow him to walk her down the aisle (I think he only wanted to for a publicity stunt. By this point Hanna and Mike's wedding was sponsored by Us Weekly and literally had a red carpet on it). Hanna forgives him and allows him stay but only lets her mom walk her down the alise. They are happily married with Hooter's girls serving the food at their reception and a nice tropical honeymoon in Hanna's backyard.

Unfortunately, this honeymoon doesn't last long. The verdict comes back and it's not looking good for the Liars. (Don't trials take months?) The jury has decided...

Guilty.

Hanna passes out after sharing a scared-shitless look with her husband because in all their planning they (somehow) never accounted for Hanna really going to jail. Next thing we know, the Liars are in their orange suits in thrown in prision where there are enough Ali-Cats and just Ali-admirers to make them crazy.

They've barely spent a night in jail when their lawyer comes to yank them out of jail because they have to go back to court. Why? Because someone is waiting for them...and it's none other then Emily!

...and she's not alone either.

She has Ali with her! 

It turns out Emily purposely faked her death. 

She did find a clue in Nick's house but it was in Florida and knew that the girls wouldn't have a way to investigate it while they were in custody. So she fabricated that suicide letter so no one would come looking for her. I knew it made no sense for her to die in that water. Anyone who knew her, knew she probably had the talents being a swimmer and all, to survive. But it worked in her favor. She was declared dead and took a bus to Florida where she all-too-easily found Ali and...her mother. (During the trial, only Ali's "dad" was at the trial while her mom's excuse was she was tired of all of this. But she wasn't. She was hiding Ali all along.)

Emily calls the cops as she spots Mrs. DD then Ali comes out with a gun. But it is too late, the cops are already here. Ali tries to hop a fence and escape, but she's not as fit as she used to be due to her too-good-of-a-disguise. The cop quickly catches her and Emily exposes her as a dead-girl. Ali tries to refute this claim but Mrs. DD hasn't gotten their new ID's yet, so they are all taken into custody then shipped back to Rosewood. 

All the charges against the Liars get dropped, Ali gets thrown into jail and everyone ends up happy. It's a little too wrapped up for my tastes.

Aria and Noel make up and she agrees to leave her Ali-insecurities in the past. They decide to try and travel Europe again, but this time while not being on the run.

Mike and Hanna move to NYC. She gets her movie role back and back into the Fashion Institute while he transfers to a high school in New York while they live in a apartment together.

Emily goes off by herself for a bit and learns how to surf and finds a new flirtation.

Spencer and Wren get back together and she takes a year off from Princeton.

Meanwhile, Ali bides her time. She's made herself seem insane so she can get thrown in a psych ward and learned from her mistakes of the past by counting on other people's help with her plans. She's coming back for the Liars...all she has to do is wait.

*Sigh* and that was the ending we waited so long for. Nothing really happened. It might've been so much more interesting if we had known that Emily was alive and followed her dangerous journey across the country. Otherwise, this entire book was just a filler until the end. I'm really disappointed that the final showdown with Ali literally took like 5 pages and was over just. Like. That. What a waste.

But at least it's over now! It only took 16 books and a re-boot!

Plot Hole: If the DD family lived in a different town before they moved to Rosewood, then when did Mrs. DD and Mr. Hastings meet and have the affair that conceived Ali and Country? If this is answered and I missed it, please let me know because I sure am wondering.

The One & Only (Emily Giffin)

Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets.

BEFORE READING
Just reading the reviews and seeing the others who hated all the Texas and football in this book makes me want to read it. I'm from Texas and in the South, football is like a second religion. A reviewer seemed pissed off by the books point that no one cares if you've been raped if the guy plays football, and sadly this really does occur in high school, college and pro-ball. The summary intrigued me but so did the other readers opinions. I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

AFTER READING
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I don't really run into books that talk about football in the Texas setting so much. And usually when you see girls like Shea, they don't seem 100% authentic. Girls like Shea who are that into football are usually in romance novels that have a little more emphasis on sex and seem only as a plot device to intense the male lead. However, Shea doesn't seem like that at all. Overall, I'm not sure how I felt about her as a character. Mainly it was her crush on her best friend's coach that got me. I really was psycho-analyzing her reasons for have feelings for Coach.

I figured it was because of her complicated relationship with her father. He is the impiety of guys who don't know what they want. He cheated on his first wife with Shea's mom, married her, had a kid with her then turned around and decided he wanted his first wife and daughter and left them. Coach was the only kind of father-figure in Shea's life so I figured that's why she liked him. I didn't expect for him to return her feelings and I definitely wasn't expecting for them to be together. Especially in light of how The One & Only begins. Lucy's mom and Coach's wife has just lost her battle to cancer and passed away as the novel opens. And this awakens something in Shea as she realizes she's going nowhere in life.

She stayed in town and went to Walker U, (the university that Coach coaches at, and the fictional rival of the University of Texas-Austin) works at Walker.

She's dating this boring but well-meaning loser, Miller and is doing nothing with her life. The funeral at the beginning serves as a catalyst to Shea questioning what she's done with her life and (annoyingly so) it's Coach who actually motivates a change. She quits her job at Walker U and starts working as a sports journalist at the Dallas Morning Post. She breaks up with Miller and starts dating the Dallas Cowboys (fictional) quarterback and Walker alum, Ryan James. Whoo! No more Tony Romo!

Anyway, he seemed nice enough in the beginning. Against her reservations, Shea sleeps over (haha, but doesn't sleep over) the night of their first date. Then pretty soon they're having sex. I was concerned because Ryan just ended a marriage and is keeping in touch with his wife. However, he's not cheating and if anyone is hiding their relationship, it's Shea. She doesn't want to be in the spotlight and she doesn't want Coach to know.

If there was any doubts about Coach and Shea's relationship in the beginning, Giffin did a good job of taking Shea's unrequited crush into genuine love between both characters. She actually developed a relationship past the platonic one that existed before between Shea and Coach that was real and legitimate. One of the things I really liked about this book is that Giffin has no problem breaking Shea's hero worship of Coach. Despite her argument against my (and her father's thoughts) that her feelings for Coach were just due to his role as a father figure in her life, her feelings for him weren't just because of him being who he was. However, it isn't because he's a stand-in father figure that she likes him, but Shea worships him a pure, sinless football god. For the two to truly be able to move forward in their relationship this has to be broken and Shea has to see him as a person.

I had a bunch of questions about the relationship. For a long time, I assumed that Coach wasn't going to return Shea's feelings and she'd end her relationship with Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Ryan Jame and end up alone. However, that's not what happened. So when I saw the direction the novel was going I started wondering how exactly this relationship would work. But Shea insisted that she didn't want kids. But I still wondered if Coach wanted to marry her one day, how exactly would that work? Being her best friends stepmom?

Which reminds me of another aspect about their relationship I kept wondering about: Lucy. Lucy's reaction to Shea and Coach's relationship was valid to me.

a) She was closer to her mother
b) and her mother has recently died
c) not to mention, Lucy can't picture her dad with anyone but her mother
d) ...let alone her own best friend
e) ...who already has a relationship with her father that Lucy's jealous of.

No wonder she was mad! No matter what Shea says, Coach was not a good father to Lucy. She didn't want to have anything to do with his football world and he didn't try to meet her on another level like she tried to with him. Throughout the entire novel this doesn't change. Lucy keeps trying and Coach doesn't care. He tries in his relationship with Shea and Lucy even allows the two to be together in the end. But in the last glimpse we see of them, Coach still isn't trying to create a better relationship with Lucy. He even forgets Lucy's birthday and hilariously enough, his granddaughter called him out on it.

I died!

I will admit, yes there's a lot of football in this book. Maybe a little too much for Giffin's target audience without some kind of glossary or clues. However, I only found myself skimming over one scene that had too much football for me.

One complaint I do have is the alleged rape is dealt very off-handedly and like an afterthought in the story. I still don't understand why Coach decided to bring it up especially since it wasn't really dealt with. It actually kind of pissed me off how Shea and Coach were so sure to dismiss the victim's story because they "'can't believe Ryan would even rape someone."

Are you serious? Do you know how many mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends, siblings and co-workers insisted that alleged rapists weren't rapists when they actually are. You weren't in the room therefore you don't know. Did she not remember just earlier in the book that she didn't think Ryan would ever grab on her and hurt her? Talk about Too Stupid To Live. That really pissed me off. That was some true ignorance that I don't know if the author meant to include in the story or not.

Otherwise this was a very interesting read and I enjoyed seeing my home (properly and realistically) portrayed in literature.

Gorgeous [Avery Sisters #2]

SUMMARY: She's looking good...but Allison Avery can't believe it. Growing up with beautiful, blond sisters, Allison has always been the dark-haired, "interesting-looking" Avery. So when the devil shows up and offers to make her gorgeous, Allison jumps at the chance to finally get noticed. But there's one tiny catch, and it's not her soul: The devil wants her cell phone.

Though her deal with the devil seems like a good idea at the time, Allison soon realizes that being gorgeous isn't as easy as it looks. Are her new friends and boyfriend for real, or do they just like her pretty face? Allison can't trust anyone anymore, and her possessed phone and her family's financial crisis aren't making things any easier. Plus when she finds out that she might be America's next teen model, all hell breaks loose. Allison may be losing control, but how far is she willing to go to stay gorgeous forever

MY THOUGHTS:
Okay, this book is very bad, forget “ehh”. It doesn't really take itself seriously.

There’s the cliche girl who is the middle child and feels like her family treats her older sister and the baby of the family way better than her. And she is a MAJOR pushover. Her so-called best friend Jade basically judges any and every one from the amount of make-up they were to their grades and how many extracurriculars they're involved in. I especially don’t like Jade because she tells Allison that by skipping ONE DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL IN THE 9TH GRADE colleges weren't going to accept her.

Um, okay because that’s not a strict exaggeration.

And she expects everyone to abide by her rules. And if they don’t, she gives them the silent treatment. It’s like her go-to solution. For example: Allison laughs too loudly at a joke Jade makes in the cafeteria and Jade and their other friend (basically Jade’s lackey) Serena just follows her example.

And then the boy of the story, Ty/Tyler is ugh. He’s fickle. He flirts with Allison’s new friend Roxie and then her best friend Jade (another reason I don’t like her because she knows that Allison has had a crush on him for forever and she just disregards that) and then starts going after Allison when she gets pretty. And then the author tries to make him seem like a good guy by humanizing him and throwing in that he has a brother with Down Syndrome and he is his hero.

I’m confused. Is he good or bad?

And Allison is kind of naive too. Like when Tyler admits to her that he only/started liking her because she got hot, she seems surprised.

And don’t even get me started on the devil part.

This really makes no sense. It’s used as a plot device to get the actions of the book started but it's not properly executed at all. Like when the devil first shows up, Allison doesn't freak out. She just goes pee and keeps herself covered because she doesn't want to expose herself to him. And then they haggle over a deal that makes no sense. He tries to offer Allison her sisters metabolism in exchange for her soul (but apparently she doesn't have one? I didn't understand this part) but she asks to be gorgeous instead...in exchange for her CELL PHONE! And the devil takes it.

What does he need a cell phone for???? He doesn't even take it away. Instead, he merely “possesses it” which means it basically does whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Making weird sounds, playing the music randomly and loudly. And he allows her to keep it...um, okay?  Then the devil turns out to be the editor-in-chief of the magazine Allison is a finalist in. And he expects her to tell all about her family's financial problems and her trouble with Jade and Roxie and Ty and her stuff with her sisters. Which I guess is the author's way of saying something about beauty and culture and magazines and the people behind them.

And it ends the way it began, Allison rips up a photo of her looking gorgeous and walks out choosing to be noble and to keep her family's secrets out of the spotlight at the expense of herself. Which is kind of a predictable ending. And with that she decides she's good enough to date Ty and they start dating.

The end.

Talk about time waster reading this book was.