We Were Liars

Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Publication Date: May 13^th, 2014

Length: 227 pages (in Hardcover)

Genre: YA Contemporary/Mystery

Format and Source: eBook, from the iBook store.

Summary from Goodreads: [This will be spoiler free, but the actual review below will not]. A beautiful and distinguished family.

A private island.A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.A revolution. An accident. A secret.Lies upon lies.True love.The truth. We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. Read it.And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Okay so basically this “summary” is more of a blurb so I’ll try explain it in a few sentences without giving too much away. Cadence Sinclair Eastman is Harris Sinclair’s eldest granddaughter. Harris Sinclair is the owner of an island that the all-American Sinclair family (plus Gat) visit every summer. Johnny, Mirren, Gat and Cadence make up the Liars, a group of four friends who stay at the island together. In Summer 15, something went dreadfully wrong, disturbing their peace, and now their picture perfect lives have fallen apart.

This is really all I’m willing to say, trust me, this book is best read when you know absolutely nothing about it.

Review: [Reminder: Spoilers]. For all you nosy people still reading this spoiler infested review without having read the book, begone! I’m serious! The book is so much more enjoyable when you don’t know what’s going on. I’m gonna say the spoiler now, scroll up and leave while you can!

I was honestly so shocked about the plot twist. Generally I’m onto these things but this really blew me out of the water. There were plenty of clues if I had paid more attention, but they keep coming back to me now. Taft believing Cuddledown was haunted, her emails never getting a reply, the Barbie doll never received – once you look back it all makes sense. I was honest to God so surprised when she realised they were all dead, and while I didn’t cry, it was definitely a shocking revelation. There’s so much I want to talk about when it comes to this book, so I’ll start with what I found interesting before moving on.

This book had an untrustworthy narrator, and I love that in books. Right from the start when she says, “then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest,” I just knew I was in for a sweet ride. In this sense the book reminded me of Mara Dyer, and I feel like to a certain extent Cadence had PTSD too but that’s about where the similarities stop. While Mara had special powers and saw hallucinations (oh, if you haven’t read Mara Dyer, you really should), I feel like Gat, Johnny and Mirren weren’t hallucinations, rather that they were ghosts. This is totally up to interpretation and I know many people will disagree with me but in my mind it just fits that they were ghosts, and I’m happy to keep thinking of it like that (another area this book wins brownie points – it actually made me think really hard and look back on it at the end etc). One of the many reasons Mystery is such an amazing genre is because they make you look back on the whole book once the revelation is made, and I love that.

For me, the style of narration was confusing but I’ve read a few books that jump time periods etc and it really added to the effect of the book in this case so it turned out fine. It’s a very jumpy way of writing, but at the same time, the book felt so much longer than it actually was, and that’s an admirable skill to possess. You felt like you lived in their world for much longer than you actually did, and I enjoyed that. The ending of this book definitely put me in a bit of a reading slump, and I’ll probably have to read something light hearted to make up for it.

There were only really two negatives I saw in this book. The first was just how stupid the characters were back in Summer 15, and the second being how depressing the overall mood of the book was. Summer 15 made me so angry. These kids no nothing when it comes to arson, and while I guess that’s a good thing, you’d assume that if they were actually planning on setting a house alight they’d look into the logistics. Their plan was to put a person on every floor. Not only did they have no signal whatsoever about when to light the fire, but they didn’t know the first thing when it came to setting the house on fire in the first place. Setting the basement on fire would effectively burn the house down, and while they were drunk, you’d think it was common sense not to have people on floors with no exits. Basically, this part made me so angry and I was already emotional enough after the dogs’ deaths that I was on the verge of putting the book down and never coming back.

The only other negative for me was that the book was way more depressing than I thought it would be. Like I’ve said above, the book was similar to Mara Dyer, but it was more sombre than Mara Dyer was. Obviously it adds to the mood of the book, but it means that regardless of how much I liked it, I’m unwilling to pick it up again just because I don’t want to put myself through that pain.

Final Rating: A-. This book was just a massive mind-fuck and no matter how long I contemplate it, it will always be. And I don’t think I mind that. It’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read so far this year, and while it isn’t quite conventional, it was amazing none-the-less. You’ve heard people say this time and time again, but you really don’t want to know anything going into this book, it’ll spoil the whole effect. 

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