Review: Unbelievable

Title: Unbelievable
Author: Sara Shepard
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 335
Series: Pretty Little Liars #4
Rating: 4 stars
**WARNING: Spoilers for Books 1-3**
From the book jacket: 
Behind Rosewood's grand facades, 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?

---------------

I was really excited to start this one after the end of Perfect - I wanted to know what had happened to Hanna. At first I was a little disappointed: it felt like it took ages for the plot to get moving, because it was split between four different points of view and so there were little cliffhangers all the time and it was just very spread out. BUT! It did get moving, and the mystery of A comes to a big climax in Unbelievable.

Sara Shepard really does do a great job with the mystery. I did figure out the big secret she was throwing at us a few pages before it was officially revealed, but for most of the novel I genuinely had no idea who the culprit was. She managed to resolve a lot of issues (which is good) and still leave enough there to make me want Wicked ASAP.

The issues are changing, too, which is good. The characters are still their same old selves (for the record, Hanna is still my least favorite, but I love the other three) and they're still dealing with their issues, but it's changing. Their secrets are out, so they're facing a whole new set of hurdles. Plus, the mystery of "the Rosewood Stalker" is escalating and they're dealing with that. There was still more preppy-popular-fashion-stuff than I liked because I don't relate to that well, but the story and characters are well-created, so I can overlook the other stuff. I think Unbelievable may have been my favorite book in the series to date.

Also, a random side note: these books are really hard to review once you get past the first one, because the plot is so wrapped up in the mystery that it's difficult to find something to say that's not some kind of spoiler, and I hate spoilers. But I shall keep trying, because I'm really enjoying these books. :)

Links: 
Pretty Little Liars website