Book Review: Pretty Little Liars

                                                       Pretty Little Liars Review

Pretty Little Liars is about four former friends Spencer, Aria, Emily and Hanna whose friend Allison went missing years before the series began while the five girls were having a sleepover. Allison was someone the girls all admired but also someone who used the secrets that she knew about them in order to control the girls actions by holding them over the girls heads. The four remaining friends drifted apart soon after Allison went missing and became strangers to each other. Spencer spends her time being an overachiever because it's what's expected out of her and because of her need to be better than her sister Melissa who her parents clear love more than her. Aria had spent the few years living in Iceland and found who she truly wants to be someone who is adventurous and artsy. Emily has been working hard on the swim team and overall being the perfect daughter her parents expect her to be. Hanna has transformed herself and has become very pretty and popular along with a former unpopular girl named Mona who is now her best friend.

The girls were fine with living their lives as they have been for the last few years before they started getting messages from a mysterious person how calls themselves A Who not only knows their misdeeds that their currently doing but also knows things about their pasts that only Allison would know. The girls while spooked by the messages spends most the book just living their separate lives and just hoping that the messages will go away. During the book Spencer spends her time getting close with Melissa's boyfriend Wren, Aria starts and stops a relationship with Ezra who is her English teacher several times, Emily starts a journey of self discovery when she starts to fall for her new friend Maya and Hanna spends her time shoplifting and trying to convince her boyfriend who recently to a virginity pledge to have sex with her.

This is book pretty similar to the TV series which really just made me want to start re-watching the series and I find it interesting how this book ends at the same spot that the pilot did. So far I feel like the changes that the TV series made early on were for the better since I liked the characters a lot more from the start there and I liked how first episode had a much tighter timeline for the plot and I know it's because the show only had about 40 minutes to get the audience hooked while the book had as much time as it wanted to have to tell it's story but in this case less was more. Another thing that I didn't like about this book was how Spencer's parents acted like she was the bad guy for Wren and her kissing even though Wren is close to ten years older than Spencer who is a teenager so I feel like her parents should be more worried that she was being taken advantage of rather than acting like she was a home wrecker for ending a relationship that clearly wasn't going to last, I feel like this would have bothered me a little less if I read this when I was younger but it just feels really wrong reading it now.

This book was overall pretty good and it did a good job of establishing who the characters were as individuals before getting them all together at the end of the book and then deciding to put a spotlight on what the main plot of the series was going to be at the end of the book too. Overall while I enjoyed the book I couldn't help but compare it to the TV series which makes it a bit hard to judge it on it's own merits but does show that it's first book was a pretty well adapted for television. Please tell me your thoughts about this book or series as a whole.

Top 5 Thursday: Top 5 Shows that I need to Catch up On

Top 5 Thursday is a meme that I create to make lists of things involving TV and movies. I would love for anyone that sees this post to make list of their own whether it's in the comment section or on their own blog.
I've noticed recently that there are some shows that I haven't watched in a long time that I do still love that I never got around to watching again so therefore I'm super far behind on them so I thought I'd make a list of them in hopes that it will motivate me to catch up on the shows.

1. Pretty Little Liars: I really loved this show but I've only watched season 1 and the first couple episodes of season 2. I still hear and see stuff about this show all over tumblr and I really want to get caught up with the show but I never seem to do so for some reason.

2. Nashville: I really loved this show because of it's music which is so great and I thinking everyone should at least listen to the soundtrack of this show. Another thing that I love about this show is the character Juliette Barns she is my favorite character and half time she's the only thing I really care about in the episode which might not be a good thing. I don't know how I got so far behind in that I've only watched the first 15 episodes but I do plan to catch up on the show and I plan to continue to review.

3. Switched at Birth: I actually watched and reviewed the first ten episodes of this series but I didn't know when it came back and then I just never watched it because I felt like I couldn't review the episodes since they aired so long ago but I really love the show. I would really like to start watching the show again and I was wondering if you guys would be okay with me reviewing every episode.

4. Orphan Black: This is a show that I started this summer and it's a really great show that I'd recommend to anyone and it has really amazing acting and is an unusual story in that it deals with clones but does so in a way that feels realistic like it could be something that could be happening in our world and we just don't know about it. I only ended up watching like three out of ten episodes I do plan to watch the rest of them it's just that I haven't gotten around to it and since it doesn't come back until spring I haven't really felt pressured to do so.

5. Doctor Who: I only have two episodes in series 7 that I still need to watch but with the 50th anniversary coming up so soon I really want to be caught up by then so I can watch it. This is a show that I obviously still love and it's really just because it's not possible for me to watch it live that I got behind on the series in the first place so I'm sure I'll catch up soon.

Fantastic Five Friday: Top 5 Pilots

Fantastic Friday is a weekly meme that's hosted by The Weekly Enthusiast

1. The OC: The pilot of The OC is one of my favorites because The OC is my favorite show and this is the episode that introduces the audience to this world and the characters which I loved and I also loved that it told a whole story but with plenty of room to develop.

2. Pushing Daisies: This episode was just as magical as the rest of the series which is a brilliant mixture of fairytale like romance, quirky crime solving and lovable but slightly damaged characters. I love this Pilot because it's just as brilliant as the rest of this wonderful series.

3. Firefly: This was a brilliant two part pilot that does a great job of introducing the audience to the whole cast and the world that they live in without ever seeming boring. This was a great episode of a great series.

4. Pretty Little Liars: This episode did a really good job of introducing the four main girls and the idea of A and I just found the pilot to be really intriguing as a whole.

5. Arrested Development: This was a great start to unusual but terrific series about a wealthy family who looses everything but try to continue as if nothing happened. I just loved meeting the Bluth family and I enjoy how odd they all are.

Fantastic Five Friday: Top 5 Shows that were referred to me

Fantastic Friday is a weekly meme that's hosted by The Weekly Enthusiast

1. Doctor Who: This is a show that a ton of people seemed to love and after seeing so many positive comments and beautiful picspams and gifs on tumblr I decided I need to watch the series. It was hard for me to get into the first series so after episode three I skipped to series five and watched all of series before going back finish series one, I found this method of watching helped me like the first series a lot more actually. Right now I have finished series 1, 2, 5, 6 and all of series 7 episodes that have aired and I'm halfway through series three. I'm glad I started watching this show because it's brilliant.

2. Game of Thrones: This is another show I started watching because of tumblr and I'm so glad I did. Game of Thrones is a fantastic series with an epic plot and amazing characters. This is probably the highest quality show I ever watched and I find it amazing how much has happened in the show even though there's only been 20 episodes aired so far.

3. Nikita: This amazing practically prefect show was recommended to me by Aimee at penmanship smitten and I'm so glad I started watching this show. Nikita is a show with a brilliant plot, great characters with plenty of backstory provide and also has some great action scenes. I've only watched the first 6 episodes so far and I plan to continue watching this series. I would personally recommend this series to everyone since it's so great.

4. Community: This is another series I decided to watch because of tumblr and critical reviews and I'm glad I did because it's pretty much the most brilliant comedy ever. This series is great and strange as are the characters.

5. Pretty Little Liars:This show was recommended to me by little sister who no longer watches the show but I still do even though I'm super far behind. I didn't really know anything about the show before I watched but I remember being excited that my sister was watching her first teen drama so I watched it to see what it was about and since the pilot was great I loved the show right away and become obsessed with it.