Spencer Hastings (Book Character)

Spencer Jill Hastings is one of the four main characters of the book series created by author Sara Shepard. She is portrayed by Alexandra Bowen on the book covers.

Appearance
In the books, she is described to have dirty blond hair, a small nose with turns up slightly at the end, bow-shaped lips (like her half-sisters', Alison's and Courtney's) and emerald green eyes.

Biography
It's not easy being perfect-just ask Spencer. From striving to be valedictorian to scoring the most goals in field hockey, Spencer is on a mission to out-do her older sister, Melissa. But no matter how high her GPA is or how many extracurricular clubs she smashes into her schedule, the only time Spence scores more than Melissa is when it comes to Melissa's boyfriends.

Spencer is an incredibly smart, but an extremely competitive student, who is both "Alison" DiLaurentis' rival and friend. She comes from an 'old money' family with a long history in Rosewood. As her parents have exceedingly high expectations of her, she works hard to be at the top of her class and is involved in a variety of clubs and other extracurricular activities. Spencer shows signs of OCD in the books, such as "Perfect." Spencer has a older sister, Melissa, who returns home from college with her fiancé, Wren Kim, to whom Spencer is immediately attracted. Spencer and Wren almost have sex in the Hastings' barn, which is temporarily Spencer's room; this leads to Melissa and Wren breaking off the engagement. She does have a brief but intense relationship with Wren anyway, going as far as to lose her virginity to him. For a homework assignment for Economics, Spencer steals Melissa's old homework paper, which her teacher ends up placing it into a nation-wide competition, and is eventually nominated for a Golden Orchid; she eventually wins the Golden Orchid, for which she feels guilty. Spencer keeps having a flashback of her pushing Ali to the ground the night of her disappearance and comes to believe that she killed Alison herself. Her sister reassures Spencer that she isn't the kind of person to kill someone, which then leads Spencer to falsely believe that Melissa killed Alison.
 * Known for: Being a perfectionist, almost being killed by Mona Vanderwaal, and stealing her sister's old AP Econ essay.
 * Favorite things: Excelling at sports, acing her academics, and one-upping her sister
 * Biggest regret: Arguing with Ali the night she disappeared, and hurting Ali by shoving her into a wall, thinking that she was the one that killed her
 * Worst offenses: Two counts of boyfriend theft, framing Kelsey for drug dealing, and stealing Melissa's Golden Orchid paper and using it as her own

Later on she discovers that her father had an affair with Courtney's, Alison's, and Jason's mother, Jessica DiLaurentis, and Alison and Courtney are her half-sisters. Note that Jason is not related to her or Melissa, since he is the only legitimate child of the DiLaurentises. She begins to fall for her rival Andrew Campbell, and they start dating. Their relationship ends eventually.

It becomes clear in Twisted that Spencer had done something illicit in scoring a Princeton University acceptance letter, but it is unclear what that is. After the fallout from the summer in Jamaica, Spencer's mother gets engaged to a man named Nicholas Pennythistle. Spencer goes for a formal meet-the-family at a fancy restaurant, where she informally meets his son Zach, her future step-brother. She immediately takes a liking to him, but not to his younger sister Amelia, who seems to judge Spencer unfavorably, yet take to Melissa quite easily. Meanwhile, Spencer notices that Zach seems flirtatious, and both she and Zach seem to have a lot in common, both being the black sheep in their families. They both have a preppy dress style and come from very well-to-do families, both being accustomed to vacationing in Europe and living in luxury's lap. They also both have sarcastic senses of humor.

Spencer is thus attracted to Zach, who takes her to a club one night shortly after they meet. They dance and kiss, but then Zach pulls away, claiming he is gay. Spencer is confused, however, when he seems to be flirting with her in a sexual way after this. She also notices that his younger sister Amelia accuses him of not liking shopping, something she finds dubious for a gay guy. They take Amelia shopping for a makeover, trying to soften Zach's sister, who is so unlike Zach in personality. They have fun together and get drunk right under their parents' noses at dinner, without them catching on.

After Spencer falls asleep drunk in Zach's hotel room, Zach's father Nicholas barges into the room the next day to rouse his sleeping son for his scheduled interview. When he sees Spencer, he becomes livid at both of them, and starts physically abusing his son. Spencer reveals that Zach is gay, trying to convince his father that they didn't have sex, but Nicholas' response is to become more enraged and break chunks of the hotel wall. Zach then expresses his utter contempt for Spencer, destroying their budding friendship. Spencer is then informed that Zach is to be sent off to boarding school. She tries to apologize to Zach, but he is equally livid and curses her out in no uncertain terms.

Relationships
Spencer has a relationship with the following:
 * Ian Thomas: They kissed while Melissa and Ian were dating and have flirted in the past
 * Wren Kim: They made out inside Spencer's barn, and they had sex, they were secretly together for a while.
 * Andrew Campbell: They were in a relationship through "Wicked" and "Wanted"; broke up at the beginning of "Twisted".
 * Zach Pennythistle: She had a crush on him in "Twisted."
 * The boy at her Nana's house Colin