Pretty Little Liars #16: Vicious

After eight years of A’s conniving ways, the Pretty Little Liars series comes to an end with the sixteenth installment, Vicious. Finally, the true identity of A is revealed, along with resolutions to the myriad of questions that we have formed over the course of the series. Following the dramatic ending of the previous book in the series, the novel opens with the four Liars facing the courts after being framed with the alleged murder of Alison DiLaurentis. Only the girls know the truth about Alison, but with police officers trailing them everywhere they go and with A’s threats only worsening, it looks as if A may win the game, after all.

For a book series with so much suspense and built-up anticipation, Vicious was a somewhat disappointing end. The plot lacked its usual fast movement, and the characters felt more one-dimensional than they have in other books. The biggest let-down of all, though, was in the resolution itself. The series contains so many twists and turns, but Vicious was fairly predictable; in the end, the book really did not contribute much to the suspense of the series and felt more like an epilogue than a dramatic conclusion.