Somehow, it continues. There’s another ‘A’. We still don’t know who killed Alison. It’s almost as though the previous four books were a total waste of time. And Cycle Two begins.In the flashback prologue we are re-introduced to every single Rosewood Day student whose name has ever been mentioned in the books, all of whom are entranced by some nonsensical annual treasure hunt/time capsule thing the magnitude of which, Shepard assures me, does not need explaining. All I learn from this is that the whole of the school grounds must be full of buried flags, which no one either currently or in the future could be interested in. I suppose the whole matter can serve as a microcosmic representation of Rosewood’s attitudes in general though: the focus is entirely on the privilege of winning the competition and the glamour of being recognised, but no one stops to think what the actual purpose of burying time capsules full of decorated flags is, since there is no purpose. It’s all just fuss and glamour around an empty centre, designed so that someone can be the best at something and everyone else can be losers.At any rate, once we have heard once again about how embarrassed both Hanna and Emily are of their hair-colour (“poop-brown” and “chlorine-greenish” respectively, as we are told repeatedly in each book) the story proper begins. The four girls are now having group sessions with a grief counsellor, which means we have to hear every plot-point from the previous four books reiterated. The counsellor’s advice is to put all the items which remind them of Alison into a bin-bag and bury them, which is not only quite stupid but also pretty much what they decided to do off their own bat at the end of the last book. So I’m not really sure what their families are paying the “very best grief counselor in the Philadelphia area” for. Particularly since none of them seem especially grief-stricken. Still, I suppose they may as well waste money on unnecessary pseudo-therapy as on anything else. The rehashing of old events from the previous books drags on tediously for some time, leavened with the occasional new development. Apparently the ‘A’ blackmail notes have become a nationwide phenomenon, which seems rather wishful thinking on Shepard’s part. Otherwise nothing much is happening. Hanna is so stupid she keeps trying to send Mona texts about ”mani-pedis”, forgetting that Mona is in fact dead, and that prior to her demise she tried to kill Hanna. Mike continues to be a sexual pervert, but a girl has unwisely agreed to go on a date with him. Aria does the talking-to-someone-at-an-art-show-and-realising-too-late-he’s the-artist storyline, but she’s not concerned because she can tell by the way the artist in question sexually assaults her just after they meet that he thinks she’s sexy, and since he is a man this is flattering and she would like to sleep with him. Spencer is annoyed that she is being lightly punished for the essay competition cheating thing, which is still being mentioned as though it was in any way interesting. Spencer’s male equivalent Andrew continues to clumsily express sexual interest in her, despite her numerous previous rebuffs. Emily watches a Christian rock band at her local church and notices that the male lead singer has the same shoes as her. She then gets a feeling like electricity flowing through her, and is suddenly not a lesbian anymore. Apparently Jesus can cure gays after all. I’m uncertain how much of this is deliberate, and how much is down to massive stupidity. Quite a lot of time is taken up with Hanna wondering how she could possibly have failed to notice for 3½ years that her best friend was a deluded psychopath who knew all her secrets and wanted her dead, even though they were incredibly close and loved each other like sisters. Hanna is pretty thick, but it does stretch credulity that even someone as dense as her could have been completely unaware of the situation. Strangely however, having the characters of the book as baffled as the reader as to how they are supposed to take the plot seriously does not make the books any less awful. The new plots continue the sub-soap-opera awfulness of the earlier books. Spencer’s grandmother dies and leaves each of her grandchildren $2 million, except for Spencer. I was too distracted by the disgusting privilege of the Hastings family to care why, but I assume it’s because Spencer will turn out to be illegitimate/adopted. Meanwhile Aria’s new inappropriate love interest turns out to have all the combined flaws of her last two, being both older and involved with someone she knows, in this case her own mother. Since absolutely nothing of interest came of the previous two unsuitable liaisons I don’t have high hopes for this storyline. Ian is released on bail due to his mum developing Plot-Convenient-Cancer, and immediately afterward the girls all receive another ‘A’ message. This means that ‘A’#2 is obviously not Ian, but naturally we have to sit through page after page of various people assuming that it is, and telling the police as much. After all, they all saw him on the news report putting his hand into his pocket. And what’s kept in pockets? Mobile phones, obviously. Case closed. The usual nothing-much occurs. Emily takes up a lot of pages falling in love with stereotypical sensitive-musician-type Isaac, who is as intensely boring as she is. Hanna decides to be best-friends with her three worst enemies, which is hard to care about if you’re not 10 years old and an idiot. Aria’s family bond with her mum’s new boyfriend over their mutual hatred of all Icelandic people, who are apparently weird. Hanna continues to drop her boyfriend every time she has any friends and then expect him to pick up the pieces when she falls out with them. Ian suddenly appears and tells Spencer that there’s something very important she doesn’t know related to Alison’s death, but he can’t tell her what it is yet because it’s not near enough to the end of this cycle. Mike continues to harass Emily for being a lesbian. Spencer jumps onto the prophetic dream bandwagon, seeing a vision of an older and a younger Alison (aged 13 and 12 respectively) arguing with each other over Ian. Luckily she can tell the difference because she is able to match any outfit of Alison’s with the time and date she wore it anywhere up to 4½ years ago. As can all of Alison ‘s other friends. Obviously. It increasingly seems that I am supposed to believe that Alison is literally haunting people’s dreams whenever the plot is getting a bit thin, although why she can’t find anything better to do as a ghost than offer the vaguest of useless clues and bicker with herself over boys I’m not sure. Alison’s family appear now-and-again and we are informed that they are behaving weirdly, although nothing in the writing indicates this. After endless running away crying and making a scene in public places Emily finally tells her new boyfriend that she used to go out with a girl, and he graciously “accepts” this, which is exactly as you would expect from the smug type of Christian he represents.The trial is eventually reached, but unfortunately doesn’t get very far as it turns out that Ian has escaped the Rosewood police, who are on typically effective form, and disappeared. In response the police amp up the security on the girls, although for some reason this personalised security only applies when they’re at a party. Spencer fails to tell the police that she has seen Ian, basically because she can’t be bothered. Everyone continues to drone on incessantly about the flag-hunt thing from 4½ years ago, which they have suddenly simultaneously decided is massively relevant. The magical website which Spencer joined automatically finds her a potential birth mother by using only Spencer’s name and address, which seems a touch unlikely. Hanna continues to be more stupid that a normal human mind can comprehend. Spencer joins in by deciding to dig up the bin-bad they buried at the beginning of the book because she thinks Alison told her to do so in a dream. Inside it she finds a sketch Aria drew of Alison and Ian 4 years ago, and uses it as actual concrete evidence of their feelings and emotions at that time. The only actual clue she finds is yet another hint about the flag-hunt thing, which I very much do not care about. Meanwhile, in yet another example of Rosewood’s excellent parenting, Hanna’s father punishes her for bullying her step-sister by decreeing that they can now only attend social events if they are together. Which I’m sure will resolve matters. Then for some reason the girls all end up running about in the dark outside, exactly like they were told not to, in danger from ‘A’. As usual none of them die, but since something dramatic has to occur to conclude the book Ian is found dead. Which is entirely his own fault for telling someone that he had a big secret, but refusing to disclose it, since according to the rules of badly-written drama that’s exactly the same thing as signing your own death warrant. Worst Item of Interior Décor “A large, wrought-iron statue of the Eiffel Tower” Mentioned six times. No idea why. Hopefully it will be an “amusing” murder weapon in the next book.Stupidest NamesSavannahWolfgang (Admittedly an alias, but still…)Xavier ReevesSmithson Pierpont HastingsAlexandra PrattSienna MorganBriony KoganJackson HughesHester PembrokeBinky ByersOlivia ZeiglerLaziest Mistake “Aria shrugged. As seventies rock went, she was more of a Velvet Underground girl.” Really? Because 3 books ago she couldn’t remember which “old album” had a picture of a banana on the cover. So I guess she’s not that big a fan.Stupidest Review of a BandThe Rolling Stones – disliked by Aria because “MickJagger was thinner than she was, and Keith Richards was downright terrifying.” Not sure why singer thinness is an issue, and “downright terrifying” seems ever so slightly over the top. No mention of their music, so I’m going to assume that Aria has never actually listened to any, as her musical knowledge seems somewhat limited and she is too self-obsessed to notice things that don’t involve her.Michelangelo Montgomery at Home: A Selection of Statements Made to his Mother and Sister “I only date girls with money.” “You know what I think makes women look better? Implants!” On his sex life : “That’s for me to know and for you to obsess about.” “We’re getting a prime seat at Steam so we can check out Hanna Marin and her hot stepsister.…You talk to Hanna sometimes—do you know if they sleep in the same bed?” “You know, she’s pretty sexy for a blind chick. I’d do her.” Most Over-Competitive Attitude “Every December, Rosewood Day Elementary held a schoolwide snowflake-making contest, and the winning designs were displayed in the elementary and high schools all winter. Spencer used to feel so devastated when her classroom lost—the judges announced the winner right before winter break, so it kind of ruined Christmas.” Rosewood Day’s competition-mania is certainly breeding some healthy young people. Honestly, I’m not even what criteria you would use to judge a snowflake. Least Interesting or Informative Character Detail “Fake peach, Hanna decided, was her least favorite scent in the whole world.” Most Painful “Lesbian-Specific” Christmas PresentsA poster of a female athlete in a bikini, to replace the previous male athlete in speedos picture; a box-set of “The L-Word” and from Emily’s father a box of jasmine tea because “he’d read on the Internet that “uh, ladies like you” preferred tea toCoffee.” How ignorant are these people? And has Emily’s father seriously been googling “What do lesbians like?”, and come up with jasmine tea?Most Ridiculously Childish and Emo “Falling in Love” Moment Emily instantly realized the band was covering her favorite Avril Lavigne song, “Nobody’s Home.” She’d listened to it over and over … feeling like she was the confused, empty girl Avril was singing about. Oddest Character Extrapolation Based on a Name “The guy’s name was Wolfgang, for God’s sake. What if he spoke in rhymes? What if he was the guy who impersonated Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for the Hollis Conservatory’s Great Composers of History festival? What if he showed up in a doublet and hose and a powdered wig?” I admit that Wolfgang is indeed a worrying name, but none of these theories seems terribly likely, does it?Most Unfortunate Common Characteristic on which to Base a Relationship “They’d compared favorite books and TV shows and discovered they both liked M. Night Shyamalan movies, even though he was terrible at dialogue.” He’s also terrible at movies.Least Appropriate Comment in Front of Your Father “I hate honeydew,” she said primly. “It tastes like sperm.” Most Unusual Example of School Discipline “Because she’d plagiarized an econ paper, Rosewood Day had mandated that if she didn’t get an A this semester, she would be removed from the class permanently.” So plagiarism is okay if you’re clever enough to have not needed to do it? And being removed from a class you have trouble with is a punishment? I don’t understand.Oddest Misunderstanding of Sexuality #1 “Emily hadn’t even been offended, and that worried her too—if gay jokes no longer bothered her, did that mean she wasn’t gay?” No. Why would the gender of the people you are sexually attracted to be inexorably linked to your tolerance of jokes/harassment? Also, why is Emily so stupid? Oddest Misunderstanding of Sexuality #2 “ “So, does this mean you’re…bi? Or what?”“I don’t know what I am,” Emily answered quietly. …Maybe I just like…people. Maybe it’s the person, not necessarily their gender.” “So bi then. Like he said. What exactly does Emily think bisexuality means, if not exactly what she just specified?Once again, the majority of this book was just rephrasing of previous scenes from the series, with occasional new nonsense sprinkled in. Surely there has to be some significant new plot development in the next book to keep this series dragging on?