I put a hold on this book such a long time ago, because I kept seeing amazing reviews for it. So when I finally got ahold of it, I was dying to read it. I kept reading, hoping to figure out why everyone was so in love with it, and then I got to the end. And wondered what I was missing that so many other people had seen in it. 
 It's not the worst book I've ever read, or even the worst coming of age story I've ever read. It just annoyed me. So much about this book annoyed me. The writing style was 
 really weird, and switched between 
 two different styles. 
 It had odd formatting 
 and broke 
 into random pieces like this 
 for no apparent reason. 
 Also, painfully extended metaphors. 
 Now, for the characters- they were all irrevocably unlikable (except for one, who wasn't completely punch in the face status). The main character, Cady (short for Cadence) was possibly the least likeable main character I've ever read. She's a rich white girl with rich white girl problems. She sees the ridiculous spending of her family and realizes how petty they are, and therefore spends the rest of the novel in moral superiority. She also comes up with a plan to give away one possession a day. This includes her used pillow, an unused toothbrush, several family mementos, and a picture frame with a picture of her deceased grandmother still inside. She ridicules her mother for buying her a travel toothbrush (that she later gives away), because she already has a toothbrush! She doesn't need another one, because only insensitively rich people have extra toothbrushes at her disposal. 
 Every summer, she goes up to her family's private island and spends time with her family (on her mother's side), including some cousins her own age, who are dubbed the Liars. In this group are two of her cousins (Mirren and Johnny), but also her aunt's boyfriend's nephew, Gat, of Indian descent. (Side note- as an Indian, I've never heard of this name. Does anyone know if its an actual name?). Gat is the only character who I didn't completely hate- probably because there aren't many Indian characters in novels, and he wasn't as annoying as the rest of the Liars. 
 The Liars themselves are a bunch of mostly pretentious teenagers- Cady is just superior to everything, Johnny is kind of the epitome of white male privilege, and Mirren is the dreamy Cool Girl. Gat is a Liar, but also an outsider because of his race and less privileged status. 
 Cady and Gat end up falling in love, though her grandfather is internally racist, which inspires a lot of Heathcliff/Wuthering Heights references and comparisons. Cady's grandfather is super rich and basically manipulates his three daughters and grandchildren with promises of inheritances- because the three daughters never did anything with their lives, there's a lot of pressure and spats between them because of these dangled promises of money. Of course, Cady and Co are above such petty things like money (though they never blink an eye when talking about their private schools and tennis lessons and all sorts of things that require money). 
 Intertwined with all this is this 'mystery' of what happened the summer they were all 15, because Cady had an accident and can't remember most of the summer. We have her going around, whining about how she can't remember anything, and trying to figure out why nobody will tell her anything. The mystery is solved at the very end with a resolution that came out of nowhere. The best part about the end was that it meant the book was over. 
 I might clean up this review later, and make it more coherent but maybe not, because I really don't want to think about this book anymore.