Pretty Little Liars, a best selling book by Sara Shepards, jumped to the small screen this year when it turned into a popular television series on ABC Family.
Pretty Little Liars tells the story of four girls who deal with life after their best friend Ali dies. Emily, a swimmer, Hanna, a bad girl, Spencer, a scholar, and Aria, an artist, all start to become harassed by an anonymous source haunting them about their past secrets that only Ali knew. This source becomes known as “A”.
These girls are all about lies and scandals. Aria has to deal with keeping the secret that her dad cheated on her mom. Mona, the girls’ classmate, is out to get the girls for bullying her in the past. Hanna has to compete with her step-sister for her dad’s respect. Emily deals with her classmates, making fun of her for her interests. And Spencer encounters an anonymous person who tries to convince her she is the one who killed her best friend. Each of these girls deal with so much drama throughout the entire series.
Their problems are constantly made worse by “A”. The girls don’t just have to find out who “A” is, they also have to find out who murdered their best friend.
In order for the unknown “A” not to reveal their secrets, they must do whatever “A” commands for them to do, as if they were little robots.
The way the book tells this story is very different from the way the television show portrays it.
The book tells the story much better and is more intriguing and the television show just doesn’t create the same effect.
In the television show the story has been completely changed. For example in the book the night Ali is murdered, she is around 12-years-old, but in the television show she is portrayed as a 17-year-old, probably to increase the amount of scandal the network can portray.
Even the actors who play the characters in Pretty Little Liars are totally different than the book. In the book Emily was a red head, yet in the television show she is a brunette with tan skin.
Also in the book the girls are described as having huge mansions, while on the TV show they just have regular 2 story homes. The mansions in the books consist of 6 car garages, maids and large luxurious pool in their huge backyard. Yet the television series home is a typical middle class Victorian house.
In the book the author does a very good job of adding suspense, and making the reader feel terrified through out the entire book. When I watched the television show I didn’t feel scared at all and it seemed a little boring.
I would rather sit down and read these 300 page books then sit down for 30 minutes and watch the television show.
If you are willing to invest the time in reading, you will get a much better story than the 30 minute program has created. Like most stories, the book is better.
