Pretty Little Liars and Hit, Plot Echoes by lorieanngrover on PolyvoreAs I traveled the country for the
#hitwithgratitude project with author
Justina Chen, I met so many teens who told me my novel
Hit was similar to the TV series
Pretty Little Liars. The first couple of mentions I thought were a bit unusual, but as it kept happening, I needed to investigate.
A month or so back, I sat down in front of
Netflix and entered the world of Rosewood. What I discovered was an echoed plot strand, exactly as my readers described. The parallels between my
Sarah and Haddings with
Pretty Little Liars' Aria and Ezra were incredible. It was as if I watched the show and wrote my work. THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED!
So this is my blog post to set the story straight. I began the novel in 2005, after the
real Sarah was struck in a crosswalk in 2004. Originally a verse novel told in six viewpoints, the novel grew and changed for ten years. In 2009, I fictionalized and added Haddings. In 2014
Hit hit the stores. And now I can sit down and see the scenes play out on screen in
Pretty Little Liars. Even to the brother's participation at the climax. I won't say more to avoid spoilers. :) But, are you kidding me?
Sometimes creative ideas cross and birth at the same time. Stories are all ultimately echoes of each other. I've lost sales in the past, because another writer, at the same publishing house, with the same editor, had the same idea at the same moment. Yes, each story is told differently. Yes, each will present in a different light, theme, motive, and truth. But sometimes, wires cross, and the spark hits two people at the exact same moment.
I thought
If I Stay by Gayle Forman was
Hit's echo.
Pretty Little Liars rings even more loudly. One take-away is that there is a a story to tell. Look at us doing so, similarly and differently. Each can be appreciated; each will reach different people; each was developed independently. That alone is fascinating! Isn't it?
Enjoy!
"Hit by Lorie Ann Grover is a powerful book about tragedy and recovery which shows you both sides of the story, for better or worse." Hypable
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Style icon Nicole Richie and menswear designer John Varvatos joined NBC’s ‘The Fashion Star’ (as celebrity mentors and judges in the upcoming style show, where aspiring designers compete for a multimillion-dollar contract to launch their own... Read the rest of this post
At the Youth Mega Mashup we’ve gotten the view from 30,000 feet (the broad perspective with an eye toward the horizon) as well as the view from the trenches about what tweens, teens, and collegians want and are into.
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Jody... Read the rest of this post
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On the cover of Teen Vogue this month we have Lucy Hale, rising star of ABC Family hit drama "Pretty Little Liars" (see YAB member Caro's review here). The Memphis-born actress, who broke on to the teen TV scene in the CW's brilliant-but-canceled... Read the rest of this post
Book Dads is proud to present our guest reviewer, Cameron from Teen Read. Cameron is an 8th grader in Western New York. Her favorite subjects are Language Arts and Math and she loves to read. She just launched her book review site and we’re trying to give her a little support and promotion here. Today she reviews the series, “Pretty Little Liars.”
In this series of eight books by Sara Shepard, four 17-year-old high school seniors face many problems each day. One of the problems they face is that their best friend, Alison DiLaurentis, disappeared in the middle of their end of seventh grade sleep-over in the Hastings’ barn.
Three years later Alison’s body was found in her backyard. One week before her body was found the four girls, Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, and Emily Fields, started receiving threatening text messages that contained secrets only the girl who received them and Alison knew.
They thought Alison was back, and were officially spooked. All the texts were signed “A”, and said if they told the police or anyone else, the texter would tell everyone their secrets or hurt them.
Hanna found out who A was because A forgot to block her number and it was a number Hanna recognized. She asked the other three girls to come so she could tell them who A was, but as they were coming to meet Hanna, Hanna was hit by a car and ended up in a coma.
The police had their own suspect, but as the girls found out more information they were convinced the police were wrong. Later in the series, the girls thought they saw Alison, but police called the sighting, “smoke and mirrors.”
The four girls started to face more and more problems and later found out Alison had a twin, Courtney, that even Alison’s best friends didn’t know about. Eventually they started to uncover secrets about Courtney.
Could Courtney be the killer? You will just have to read this amazing book series and find out all the secrets yourself.
The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.
Today, Olivia reviews Killer, the sixth book in the Pretty Little Liars series, by Sara Shepard *Spoiler alert: secrets of other books in the series are revealed in this review!*:
"In the sixth installment of the Pretty Little Liars series: Killer, relationships are strained and nothing is as it seems in picturesque Rosewood, Pennsylvania. The nightmare continues for high school juniors Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily, after their best friend Alison DiLaurentis was found murdered in her own backyard years after she went missing at the end of the seventh grade. Spencer's sister's boyfriend, Ian, is arrested for the murder after evidence is found that links him to a clandestine meeting in the woods with Ali the night that she died. At first, Rosewood considers the tragic case closed. But after Ian mysteriously disappears before his trial after somehow escaping his house arrest and telling Spencer that he's innocent, the girls don't know what to think- especially after finding his dead body in the woods, which later disappears before the police can find it at the end of the fifth novel, Wicked.
"But the secrets behind Ali's death aren't the only things haunting them. 'New A,' the mystery person who seems to know all their secrets, is still sending the girls threatening text messages: even though they thought they were done with A when Hanna's former best friend and the 'original A,' Mona Vanderwaal, is killed at the end of book four, Unbelievable, when she falls off a cliff into Floating Man's Quarry. This new A, however, might actually be helping the girls piece together the puzzle- seeing as she keeps sending them cryptic clues and pictures that relate to Ali and her murder.
"Meanwhile, Aria has decided to move in with her father and his now-pregnant girlfriend, Meredith. Even when they transition to a house frighteningly close to the woods where Ali died, Aria decides that it's better than staying with her mother, Ella and having to deal with Ella's new boyfriend, Xavier, who seems to be interested in her. After running into Ali's older brother Jason, she starts spending more time with him- though judging by her messages, A
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 7/19/2010
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Mattel launches 'Shine On Now' (The girl-powered pro-social promotion for the American Girl line will promote charitable fundraising, volunteer work.. and the new AG virtual world) (MediaPost, reg. required)
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Today's Ypulse Youth Advisory Board post is a TV review from Caroline Marques who tuned in for the series premiere of Alloy Entertainment's latest page-to-screen adaptation "Pretty Little Liars." As always, you can communicate directly with any... Read the rest of this post
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MTV says sorry for the swears (at this year's Movie Awards, some of which slipped by censors. Though with critics wondering if the event has lost all cultural and commercial relevance and viewership seeing a 13 percent drop from last year, FCC that... Read the rest of this post
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Reminder! Applications for the inaugural GennY Award are due tomorrow. Winner gets to present their case study on the main stage at this year's Youth Marketing Mashup. Also, "early adopter rates" end this Friday so register and save today!
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Mobile social networks (like MocoSpace and the growing number of young people replacing PCs with smartphones, open up some considerable possibilities to marketers. Plus SuperGlued launches an iPhone app to harness the mobile potential of the concert... Read the rest of this post
Do you remember your first childhood crush? Mine was on a boy named Dexter, in my third grade class.
I don't remember much about him, or what he looked like, except that he loved to draw, and drew a perfect Charlie Brown. Dexter sat across from me in class, so I watched him draw everyday, while I thought about other things instead of listening to our teacher. When our third grade teacher lectured, all I heard was a voice reminiscent of the adult voices in the Charlie Brown television specials. In other words, I heard, bloc, bloc, bloc, roll off her tongue most of the day. To me, she just rambled a bunch of jumbled grown-up words, that we "bright-eyed and bushy tailed" third graders, hadn't the slightest interest in. Her name was Mrs. Keysler, and she wore those cat-eyed sixties glasses with a chain that jangled when she walked, so we could here her coming at recess. Anyhow, one day while Dexter was drawing, and I was staring at him, my heart thumping around in my chest, I noticed a new shiny whistle on the top of his desk, and when I asked him if I could look at, he put it in my hand. Our teacher continued speaking in the background, bloc, bloc, bloc, bah, bloc… as I turned the whistle over and over in my hand. Then I took the whistle, put it up to my mouth, and blew it as hard as I could! The room fell silent.
After which, I heard the hushed sound of children’s voices fill the empty silence, followed by that snickering sound children make before they start pointing fingers! It's such an annoying tactic among tattlers, whose goal at this time in their life, is to retire as the teachers pet! I could feel the stares, and of course, see their self-serving tattler fingers rise to the occasion, and point in my direction! I heard one little girl cry, “She is sooo dumb!” I just sat there, horrified, as my face grew hot and flushed with humiliation. I thought of this story when thinking of what to write as part of an “about me” profile for a writer’s social community. I was thinking of why I became a writer…, which is another post, that lends a reference to how important a role I think teachers play, in helping us shape our self image; so I guess I was thinking of my teachers, and for some reason Dexter popped into my head!
Anyway, that's what I remember about my first crush; one of those funny to me now, not so funny then, experiences, especially since my teacher made me stand in the back of the classroom the rest of the day!
After that, Dexter (who may have turned out to be an illustrator) looked at me with a cautious look on his face, for what seemed like the rest of my life, and the girl who called me “soooo dumb”, turned out to be one of my closest friends! We never know what our children are going through in a day, or experiencing with their first crush, do we?
I’ll have to ask my son about his experience with his first crush. Do you remember yours?
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Sweet post. Thanks again Chris. That was way too cool of you.
Guest posts by young readers. EXCELLENT IDEA! This should become smoewhat of a regular feature.
Great post Cameron!
Chalkboard Dad´s last blog ..The Hyperborean Geocacher
Thank you my friend – this is super cool and I don’t know why it took so long to think of it!
Thanks CD! Yes, I hope to have this be a regular feature.