Low Price Pretty Little Liars

I admit that I love chick lit and a wickedly riveting series, such as the Pretty Little Liars Series. These girls drop designer names the way insecure people drop names at social gatherings.

Dramatis Personae

Alison "Ali" DeLaurentis: a bright, popular girl who led a clique of other rich, indulged girls. Alison has social clout, so being accepted by her is a way to ensure a leg up the social ladder. The other girls are more satellites to her sun; they are more subjects to Her Royal Majesty, Queen Alison. The girls live in Rosewood, a suburb of Philadelphia on the Main Line. They drop designer names at the drop of a designer hat. Ali, known for insidious cruelty has plenty of secrets. So do the other girls, all of whom have good reason to want Ali to do a permanent disappearing act.

Aria, an attractive, athletic brunette who was glad to escape Rosewood for Iceland. She has a yak-fur bag to which she is inordinately attached. It is her security blanket. Her father accepts a teaching position there and for 3 years, Aria and her younger brother by 2 years Mike, learn Icelandic and absorb Icelandic culture. Unlike Mike, Aria wants to remain in Iceland. She has a painful non-Ali related secret - she caught her father cheating with another woman. Once back in town, she picks up an older man in a bar and once school starts, discovers that her Ezra is her English teacher! She knows how to play to get an A!

Spencer, the grind. She tends to sputter at the drop of a designer hat. She earns As and other academic plaudits for real. She has long been eclipsed by her favored older sister, Melissa and when she steals Melissa's boyfriend for the second time, her cold-hearted family ostracizes her. Melissa, a pompous Drama Queen has long reveled in her Favored Daughter status and you just want to kick her in the shins.*

Hanna, the former fat girl now turned femme fatale is the weakest link in the chain. Bulimic and insecure, she has now linked forces with another social outcast. Together, they drop designer names and flaunt fashion like it's going out of style. Hanna's relationship with her divorced mother is more like business associates than family. Her father's fiancee Isabel has a daughter Kate who is Hanna's age and Hanna feels that Kate has replaced her. She does not have a good relationship with her father either and engages in illegal activities.

Emily discovers that love comes in the most unexpected places. She discovers her family's true colors of bigotry as she also learns some things about herself.

The girls band together after Ali sets the wheels in motion for the traumatic incident with devastating repercussions they call "the Jenna Thing." Shortly after the Jenna Thing, Ali disappears and the girls as well as the townspeople are determined to find her.

Someone called A knows more about Ali and her satellites than they could ever imagine. A texts and e-mails them, telling them where they've been and what they've done. A also blackmails them. The question is, who is A? One of the girls? Someone close to Jenna? A neighbor? An intrusive officer?

This is a deliciously wicked and riveting read that will keep readers bound to the last page.

The overplayed 1983 song "Every Breath You Take" by the Police could be the soundtrack for this series.

*In the last chapter, Spencer smokes a Marlboro. When that smoking scene is revisited in the next installment, the coffin nail in question is a Parliament. Readers will catch these things.Get more detail about Pretty Little Liars.