Pretty Little Devils [Paperback]

Hazel Stone, who is just starting her junior year in high school, is desperate to make new friends. Tired of the default group she's a part of, Hazel wants to be a member of the Pretty Little Devils, which consists of perfect popular girls. To her surprise, Sylvia Orly, the leader of the PLDs, agrees, and soon Hazel is inducted into the group, which subsists on secret parties during babysitting jobs, horror movies, and practical jokes.

Meanwhile, Hazel has eyes on Matty Vardeman --- but so does Breona Wu, the head cheerleader and Sylvia's mortal enemy. Lucky for Hazel, he chooses the newly "damned" PLD instead of the cheerleader. Unfortunately this makes Breona extremely angry, and she and Hazel begin getting into fights in class.

Sounds like typical high school drama. Well, it is --- until things turn sinister. All of the PLDs, including low-key Carolyn, shy Ellen and giggly Megan, start receiving strange phone calls and text messages referring to them as "bad babysitter[s]" and threatening to kill them. None of the girls know who's responsible. Before long, students are being killed and suspicions are falling on the PLDs. The end result of this tumultuous year for Hazel and her friends is somewhat unexpected.

PRETTY LITTLE DEVILS is told through secret PLD chat room transcripts, a personal blog from the anonymous killer, and standard chapters. The novel is clever, full of personality and deliciously spooky. This wholly enjoyable book will be easy to devour in one sitting because you won't want to put it down!

--- Reviewed by Hannah Gomez

It's junior year for Hazel and she wishes more than anything to be in a popular clique - more specifically, the Pretty Little Devils (PLD's). They're the queen bees of the school, whom everyone adores. So after Sylvia, their "leader" invites Hazel to one of their parties, she quickly agrees. Soon, Hazel is one of them and feels on top of the world. But trouble is brewing for this group of babysitters...they begin getting creepy phone calls, anonymous text messages, and emails from someone out to get them. As people around them start turning up dead, Hazel's not sure she wants to be a PLD anymore. Is her life worth the popularity?

This book immediately made me think of the "Pretty Little Liars" series by Sara Shepard; with an anonymous person sending threatening texts to the most popular girls in school. Not to mention the title of the book...heh. I was pretty disappointed with the book. After reading the summary that immediately got me hooked, and all of the 5 star reviews about it online, I was surprised that I didn't really like the book. I think that the writing was weak and not very descriptive. Most of the time, the character's dialogue seemed artificial - either forced, or not how teenagers their age would normally talk. Also, the texting lingo was annoying; not all teenagers type like "C U L8R" like the author made it seem. In fact, I don't know anyone who types like that - it just takes longer to decipher the message. The book was written through normal chapters, the PLD's chat room - when they would type very annoyingly - and through short blog posts written by the killer.

I'll admit though that the author did a great job keeping up suspense throughout the book! I was never quite certain who the killer could be, and it kept me on the edge of my toes - not knowing what would happen next. The ending was...interesting. Very unexpected. It's not until the last page that you find out who the real murderer was throughout the whole book; and even though it was a twist, it didn't make any sense. The author didn't include a motive for the character or anything so I'm still left pretty confused.

Unfortunately, none of the characters in the book were likable. It was sad seeing how the PLD's defined friendship, because it wasn't accurate. Throughout the whole book, all Hazel was concerned with was fitting in, being liked, and what others thought about her. She had no problem turning her back on her old friends to join the PLD's instead. That shows a lot about her character, and she didn't change, either but instead just got worse as the book continued. The PLD's did a whole lot of underage drinking, not just at their parties, and the author didn't make it seem like a bad thing. Usually authors are trying to persuade their teen readers to not fall into peer pressure and drink, by having some type of bad consequence follow up. Nope, not here. Instead, it just made the PLD's look even more "cool". From the way the PLD's were portrayed - as unreachable and perfect from the eyes of the other highschool students - I found it strange how they randomly asked Hazel to join their group. She was a nobody beforehand, sort of like in the movie Mean Girls. What made them choose her to join the group that all of the other girls at school were dying to join? No pun intended.

I really tried my best to enjoy this book and get into it, but I simply couldn't. Maybe it just wasn't for me. Give it a shot if you want; it's a good suspense novel but nothing more.

I tried really, really hard to read this over a 2 year period. I put it down, tried reading chapters inbetween other books... just about everything. I just couldn't get interested in this book.

I'm not sure why this didn't catch on with me because it's not like I dislike Holder's work or that it's poorly written. I'm reading another one of her books (Possession) which is decent enough. It's also not like I can't get into YA fiction- it's actually one of my most favorite things to read. For whatever reason, this just didn't trip my trigger.

I think what really did this in was that it was pretty obviously inspired by the Pretty Little Liars series. There's nothing wrong with writing a similarly themed book but Holden borrowed pretty liberally from the series to the point where the books share most of a title. (Pretty Little ____) With these many similarities I can't help but compare the two, which let's be honest here: PLL is the far stronger book. I know I'm not the only person who had a problem with this.

You should still check this out and decide for yourself but I recommend that you get this from the library rather than buy it outright. I might try again to finish this book, but not anytime soon.