Author: Sara Shepard
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 330
Series: Pretty Little Liars #2
Rating: 4 stars
**Warning: Contains spoilers for Book 1 (none for this one, though)**
From the book jacket:
In the exclusive town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, where the sweetest smiles hide the darkest secrets, four pretty little liars - Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna - have been very bad girls...
Spencer stole her sister's boyfriend. Aria is brokenhearted over her English teacher. Emily likes her new friend Maya...as much more than a friend. And Hanna's obsession with looking flawless is literally making her sick. But the most horrible secret of all is something so scandalous it could destroy their perfect little lives.
And someone named "A" is threatening to do just that.
At first they thought A was Alison, their friend who vanished three years ago...but then Alison turned up dead. So could A be Melissa, Spencer's ultracompetitive sister? Or Maya, who wants Emily all to herself? What about Toby, the mysterious guy who left town right after Alison went missing?
One thing's for certain: A's got the dirt to bury them all alive, and with every crumpled note, wicked IM, and vindictive text message A sends, the girls get a little closer to losing it all.
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Normally, I get kind of annoyed by books that are super-girly and full of brand-name-loving rich kids, but Pretty Little Liars is an exception to that. The references to everything that makes Hanna (and, at one time, Ali) so popular and all the brand names are the hardest parts to get through, but there's a complex plot that more than makes up for it.
At the end of book one (yes, I warned you there'd be spoilers for that one), Alison turns up dead. Since she's dead, she obviously can't be the one sending Hanna, Spencer, Aria, and Emily all sorts of mysterious and threatening text messages and emails - so who is? And then, of course, there's Toby. Toby knows the girls' darkest secret: he knows about "The Jenna Thing," an incident they've kept secret for four years that could very well come back to haunt them. He's been at a reform school in Maine since then, but now he's back, and he's showing up everywhere.
On top of that, there are all the other events from the girls' lives. Aria's issues with her family - and her English teacher; Spencer's problems with her sister and her boyfriend; Emily dealing with her sexuality; Hanna's daddy issues. There are so many different things going on in this book. As far as the characters go, Aria's probably my favorite and the one I find the most relatable, but they're all very engaging and real.
My two major complaints about Flawless were that the drama seemed kind of overdone in places and that (some of) the characters are so focused on brand names and popularity. That said, the drama, the plot, and the characters do make you want to keep reading and find out more about who these people are, what their secrets could be, and who's behind it all. I will definitely be looking for book three as soon as I can!
Links:
Pretty Little Liars website
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