University of Texas at Austin Libraries - chick lit en Pretty Little Liars Pretty Little Liars is a series of young adult novel written by an American writer, Sara Shepard. After receiving an undergraduate degree at New York University and an MFA at Brooklyn College, she published Pretty Little Liars series as her first publication in 2006. The novel has its background set in suburb of Philadelphia. The novel develops around lives of five teenage girls bonded together in an exclusive clique led by one of the girls, Ali D. Ali is the queen bee who manipulates the other girls who feel inferior to Ali. The group falls apart following Ali’s mysterious disappearance after the girls’ sleepover in the sixth grade. The novel takes place three years after Ali’s disappearance and her dead body is found. The girls start to get mysterious text messages from an anonymous person with an initial A. She sends text messages threatening to reveal the girls’ darkest secrets. Hanna used to be a fat girl, but after Ali had gone, she lost weight and recreated herself as a diva at Rosewood. She has a shoplifting habit and a fear of losing newly gained popularity. Spencer is the smart one who excels in school, sports, and everything else. Her sister Melisa is the only one she could never overcome. Her family turns their back on her after she gets caught kissing her sister’s boyfriend. Aria moves to Iceland and comes back after three years have passed. The Rosewood considers her as a weirdo. She tries to keep her dad’s secret of having an affair with his former student. Emily is a swimmer who had secret feelings for Alison and after Alison is gone, she begins to have the same feelings for a new girl named Maya. She struggles with her feelings and how the society will view her. Overall, the book is excellent for the way it is written. It is divided into several small chapters. Each chapter covers a story of one of the four girls. When a novel has so many main characters, it often gets confusing to follow and keep track of the story and match characters to the story. However, Shepard does a good job of keeping them in order by dedicating each chapter to one girl’s story. It makes you want to keep reading to find out what is happening in the other girls’ life while one girl is going through one issue. Its target audience being teenage girls, the language is easy to read. The author uses slangs and contractions yet it is completely acceptable because that is part of teenagers’ vocabulary. Shepard throws in popular culture so target readers can relate to the characters more easily. As far as the content of the book, I was slightly disappointed. The novel pictures the girls engaged in inappropriate behaviors as teenagers, such as stealing boyfriend’s dad’s car and wrecking it, shoplifting, desperately trying to have sex, and finding a mom having sex with a police officer to drop charges. Just as how the public criticizes TV and film for being gruesome, violent, and sexual and how they promote such behaviors to especially young viewers, this novel is having the same dilemma. The novel focuses on each girl’s problems that are very likely to occur in every normal girl’s life in reality, such as breaking up with boyfriend, dealing with parents’ divorce, being popular at school, trying to lose weight and stay skinny. However, Shepard goes too far in her effort to create a tie between her characters and teenage girls in reality. I advise the reader to be aware. chick lit Pretty Little Liars Sara Shepard Wed, 04 May 2011 20:41:39 +0000 admin 4916 at