Flawless

The second installment in the Pretty Little Liars series picks up in the wealthy Philadelphia suburb of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, where four teenage girls are haunted by a shared secret and stalked by an anonymous tormentor. The novel opens with a prologue recounting what the girls call "The Jenna Thing," a firework prank that left their neighbor's stepsister blind. In sixth grade, Alison DiLaurentis convinced her four best friends, Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, Aria Montgomery, and Emily Fields, to let her shoot one of Toby Cavanaugh's fireworks at his tree house. The firework crashed through the window and blinded not Toby but his stepsister, Jenna Cavanaugh. The next day, Toby inexplicably confessed to the police, claiming the accident was his fault, and was sent to a reform school in Maine. Ali bound the girls to secrecy with matching string bracelets. Less than a year later, Ali vanished. Three years afterward, her body was found buried behind her old house.

At Ali's memorial service, the four estranged friends discover they have all been receiving threatening messages from someone signing as "A." They receive a simultaneous text: "I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. —A" (1). Meeting at their old elementary school playground, they compare notes: Each girl has received texts referencing secrets only Ali knew along with details about their present lives. Spencer suggests that Toby, who has returned to Rosewood, might be A. After the meeting, A privately warns Spencer not to reveal a secret about Toby. Through flashback, the novel reveals that Spencer alone witnessed Toby confront Ali the night of Jenna's accident. Toby told Ali he saw her light the firework and threatened to tell the police. Ali countered by saying she had seen Toby do something terrible and would expose him if he did not take the blame. She forced Spencer to keep this exchange hidden, threatening to pin the entire incident on Spencer.

Each girl's storyline unfolds across the following week. Hanna has reinvented herself from an insecure outcast into one of the most popular students at Rosewood Day, the girls' private school. Her boyfriend, Sean Ackard, recently dumped her; in retaliation, she stole his father's BMW and crashed it. Her estranged father reappears, and her parents order her to volunteer at a burn clinic as restitution. At the clinic, she pockets stolen Percocet. A threatens to destroy Hanna's reputation and tell her father about her role in Jenna's blinding. Hanna tries to win Sean back, and they share a warm exchange. Her father invites her to spend Saturday at the Four Seasons hotel, and she agrees to skip Foxy, an annual Rosewood charity ball.

Emily, the quiet, state-ranked swimmer, wrestles with her feelings for Maya St. Germain, the girl who moved into Ali's old house. Maya kisses Emily after the memorial and asks her to Foxy, but Emily panics and insists they are just friends. A threatens to expose Emily's romantic feelings. Emily's ex-boyfriend Ben begins harassing her after catching her and Maya together. Toby, now attending the nearby Tate Prep school and transformed from the outcast the girls remember, intervenes during one confrontation. Emily is drawn to his openness and kindness. They share a kiss, and Emily asks him to Foxy, viewing a male date as proof that she is not gay.

Aria carries the burden of her father's affair. In seventh grade, she caught her father, Byron Montgomery, a Hollis College professor, kissing his student Meredith, and Byron swore Aria to secrecy. A gives Aria a deadline: Tell her mother, Ella, or end the affair by midnight Saturday, or A will reveal everything. With moral support from Sean, Aria confronts Meredith, who insists she and Byron are in love. Aria and Sean grow closer, and he asks her to Foxy.

Spencer, punished by her family for kissing her sister Melissa's boyfriend Wren, finds her credit cards canceled and her parents refusing to speak to her. She defiantly goes to Wren's Philadelphia apartment, where they sleep together. A suggests Spencer cheat on her economics essays by using Melissa's old papers and follows with a threat to hurt Wren. Spencer copies the essays. When Officer Darren Wilden questions her about Ali's murder, Spencer considers revealing Toby's years-old threat but stays silent to protect herself.

Saturday night at Foxy, the storylines collide. Spencer spots Toby as Emily's date and panics. A leaves a note on Sean's car reminding Aria of the midnight deadline, proving A is physically present at the event. Hanna's evening with her father unravels when he invites his fiancée, Isabel, and her daughter, Kate, to their dinner. When A texts that Sean is at Foxy with another girl, Kate covers for Hanna to leave, but Hanna gives Kate some of the stolen Percocet. At Foxy, Hanna discovers Sean is with Aria and publicly confronts them, humiliating herself before retreating to the bathroom in tears. Spencer pulls Hanna and Aria aside and reveals the full truth: Toby saw Ali light the firework, Ali blackmailed him into confessing, and years before Ali's disappearance, Toby threatened her with the words "I'll get you" (4). Spencer believes Toby is A and that Emily, who has already left with him, is in danger.

On the drive home, Toby grows emotional, telling Emily he hated Ali and is "glad that bitch is dead" (270). Emily concludes he killed Ali and bolts from the car, running through a cornfield in a rainstorm. When Toby follows her home, she tells him through the door that she knows what he did. Panicked, he says it happened long ago and he wishes he could take it back. He then flees into the woods.

The weekend's aftermath devastates each girl. Wren breaks up with Spencer after Melissa, tipped off by A, deliberately reunites with Wren only to dump him, ensuring Spencer loses him. Kate betrays Hanna by telling her father about the stolen Percocet, shattering their fragile reconnection. Ella receives a letter from A exposing Byron's affair and Aria's years of silence; Byron leaves the house, and Ella tells Aria she cannot be near her.

Sunday morning, Toby's body is found in the woods behind Emily's house; he died from a pill overdose, an apparent suicide. Hanna reveals that Officer Wilden confirmed Toby had an airtight alibi for the night Ali disappeared, meaning he could not have killed her. Spencer discloses the full secret Ali held over Toby: Ali saw Toby sexually abusing Jenna in the tree house, which so shocked her that she lost control of the firework. Ali used this knowledge to force Toby's confession. Jenna arrives and delivers a suicide note Toby left for Emily, in which he writes that what he did to Jenna was his greatest mistake. The girls apologize to Jenna, who accepts, noting that being blinded was "not the worst thing that happened" to her (325), a reference to Toby's abuse. Emily goes to her room and cuts off the string bracelet Ali gave her. Then her phone buzzes: "It's not over until I say it is" (330). Toby was not A. The real A remains unknown.