Vicious is book sixteen in the Pretty Little Liars series by Sara Shepard. It is, fortunately, the last book. I feel obligated to finish every series I begin, but for this one, I had to cheat a little. I read the first six books, opened book seven, retched, and skipped to the last.

SYNOPSIS
Four years after their best friend Alison Dilaurentis goes missing, four girls — Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily — get hounded by a mysterious figure called “A”, who somehow knows all the secrets that Alison knew and is willing to blackmail them into doing demeaning and terrible tasks. Alison is revealed to be alive and the second “A”, helped by her slavish boyfriend Nick, who is “Helper A” and later gets imprisoned. The girls are framed for Alison’s murder, and in this book, they scramble to prove that Alison is alive before the court finds them guilty.

WHAT I LIKED

• Nothing

WHAT I DISLIKED

• Unrealistic plot
  • Their lawyer has “gotten mafia bosses out of mass-killing charges” and can’t get four high schoolers out of a murder charge with almost zero evidence? There isn’t even a body.
  • Aria can somehow run off to Amsterdam while under suspicion of murder.
  • Nick is unhelpful despite actually wanting to help.
  • How in the world did people believe Emily had drowned just like that? She’s a strong swimmer and it’d barely been a few hours when the police already gave up their search. At least try looking for her body!
  • Emily’s family manages to put together an entire FUNERAL the day after she is pronounced dead.
  • Noel miraculously guesses which country Aria goes to, which city she goes to, and which landmark she goes to. AND he manages to actually find her there.
  • Noel and Aria somehow find a person to make them fake passports. It’s not even shown HOW.
• Toxic relationships
  • Noel is manipulative and constantly wants to go “have fun” despite Aria literally being an international criminal and can’t afford to be caught.
  • Wren Kim cheated on both Melissa and Spencer. The girls did not agree to that, and that is not okay. Oh and then Wren ends up with Spencer because of course.
  • Mike is racist, misogynistic, unfaithful, immature, a sexual predator, and only has one brain cell. I can’t stand him. He marries Hanna Marin, who honestly deserves him because she is a terrible human being as well.
• Hasty relationships
  • Wren and Spencer. He hasn’t been mentioned for like, what, five books? Then he appears again and suddenly they’re dating.
  • Emily ends up with a random girl that we don’t even get to meet. Oh yeah, I can totally tell that Shepard cares about same-sex relationships. I CAN SEE THE DEVELOPMENT.
• Unrelatable characters
  • Everyone is rich and spoiled. Brands I don’t recognize are name-dropped constantly. No one makes a smart decision. There is excessive wallowing in unpractical self-pity. Can you say #RichWhiteGirlProblems?
• Friendships aren’t even friendships
  • The four girls are supposedly “best friends”, yet by the last book, Aria completely abandons her BFFs to run to the Netherlands. She doesn’t bother to try and bring her “friends” with her, or even stop to realize that she’s making it look worse for them, especially since Emily has already “committed suicide”, which the jury interpret as an action done out of guilt.
  • Spencer does the same thing. She goes off to get a fake identity, not even considering doing the same for her friends.
  • In the end, the message is boys > friendship, which is a horrible thing to take away from this.
• Cliché-ridden
  • Spencer decides not to change her identity because she wants to keep her old life. Well okay, I don’t know why it took you this long to realize this. If only Aria did too.
• Stereotypes
  • I’m sure all prisoners have tattoos and are fat, masculine, and ugly.
• The end “plot twist” is horrible
  • It came out of NOWHERE. There was zero foreshadowing.
  • It’s not exciting, clever, or ingenious.

I despise this book with every fibre of my being. The first four books in the series were okay, but it only got worse and worse from there. It’s not even a good trashy book, because they are supposed to still be fun to read. This was just…boring. Mike and Hanna’s storyline disgusted me so much. His outrageous behaviour — including MOLESTING HANNA — is portrayed as endearing.
Still, this is just my opinion. I understand that many people like this series, and must have their own reasons for it. It even got made into a TV show. I watched the first 14 episodes then started skipping around, but it’s a definite improvement and something I could enjoy if I had the time to watch seven seasons.