The Good Girls by Sara Shepard // Shepard Disappoints With This Finale

Monday 7 September 2015
The Good Girls (The Perfectionists #2), by Sara Shepard
Publication: June 2, 2015, by HarperTeen
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance, Mystery
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 


From Sara Shepard, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Pretty Little Liars series, comes the shocking sequel to The Perfectionists—with an ending you'll have to read to believe!
Mackenzie, Ava, Caitlin, Julie, and Parker have done some not-so-perfect things. Even though they all talked about killing rich bully Nolan Hotchkiss, they didn't actually go through with it. It's just a coincidence that Nolan died in exactly the way they planned . . . right? Except Nolan wasn't the only one they fantasized about killing. When someone else they named dies, the girls wonder if they're being framed. Or are they about to become the killer's next targets?

My Thoughts:

Back in the day, when Shepard's Pretty Little Liars became my one and only love and when my obsession began, I thought that Ms. Sara Shepard was the best author in this world. I mean, those kinds of mysteries were the ultimate, best perfect thing to captivate a tween, pre-teen girl and get her to purchase all of the books in the series, right? I still do enjoy PLL as well as its TV show, but you honestly can't keep rewriting your hit series into everything else you're writing. Sara Shepard, with the way things are heading for her, can easily lose a fanbase because of her teen series, The Perfectionists, including myself. The Good Girls was kind of tragic compared to the other 5 star books she has written in the past. Where is the fucking originality?

That is definitely why this book has lost 2 stars of its perfect, goody-two-shoes rating that my past tween-self would've given it. I just can't believe the route that this book went into, the direction Shepard geared her writing towards. This was a catastrophe, though only in some ways. Let's take a little quiz here to discover if this book/series is really for you:

Would you, as a reader of Shepard's work want:

A) The same concept as PLL? Five girls in the group, charged for murder, them discovering the secrets, all of that?

B) No originality whatsoever? THE NAMES ARE THE SAME IN THIS BOOK. There's a character named Hannah. AND THEN IT WAS ACCIDENTALLY SPELLED "HANNA" as in the PLL character! *rages*

C) Romances where the protagonists tell their boyfriends everything and anything so that they feel safe?

D) Every character dealing with some kind of personal issue? *rolls eyes* 

I don't think so. But then again, if you answered yes to any of these options, then it's so perfect for you and it's not a good decision in my case and eyes.



I bet you're wondering why I gave this a 3 star rating if you see that I've been on a rage attack since this review had begun, hah. There were some good aspects to it, like the actual ending and such. That seriously shocked me. When I really think about it, plot twists actually rule. I actually wish that the PLL series actually had some kind of plot twist like this in the end, the solution to all of the issues of A and everything, so I must admit that this kind of boosted everything up to positivity. 

Will I get this for my collection? If you see my bookshelf, you'll see that I'm an actual Sara Shepard hoarder. I practically have all of her novels except for three, counting this one. I probably will get it, though only when it gets to paperback because I would never spend the money on something that hadn't turned out the best of the best. 


The Good Girls wasn't original at all and I had many issues with that. I guess that everyone has a different opinion onto what they would like to see in the future by an author, and I think after over 20 novels of murder mystery, we've kind of got enough. Take your own stroll, but I must say that this may be one of the last Shepard novels that I'll read for a while. 

Do you like it when good authors continue to write about the same subjects over and over again? At least from what I know, Cassie Clare does it perfectly every time.


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