We Were Liars

Review: We Were Liars This review is short and sweet, mainly because I read this novel in one sitting and am still reeling, book-drunk.
 
More of a confession than a review, really. Can a book be violent? If so, I have been pummeled by this book, dragged all about the house in a fiery embrace.
 
And I enjoyed it. The ache is delicious.

So occasionally I like to delve into the Young Adult genre to enjoy some escapism much in the way that even at 38 years old I still enjoy watching shows like Pretty Little Liars. E Lockhart's We Were Liars was widely recognised as one of the standout Young Adult books of 2014 and so I decided to give it a try.

The first intriguing thing was the introduction from the publisher asking readers to please whilst enjoying the book try not share anything with other people who hadn't read it so as to avoid spoilers for other people. So as a reviewer I am going to do my best to review the book whilst avoiding sharing anything more than I need to in order to abide by their wishes.

The story essentially focuses on Cadence Sinclair who we learn at the outset has been subject to an “accident” which has left her with severe headaches. We also learn that her summers are spend holidaying on her families private island with her grandparents, mother, aunts and cousins. The 3 eldest cousins Cadence, Johnny and Mirren along with Gat an outsider form close friendships and spend idyllic times there together.

We are essentially led through the summer of Cadence's accident and the one two years later in a series of flashbacks and memories returning to Cadence piece by piece. The story is so well put together that before you even blink you are 25%, 50% or further through it and time has passed you by. I read it in just over a day so engaging and addictive was the story.

It is to be fair not an overly long book, much in the style of If I Stay and I can fully understand why it has become so highly regarded amongst its target audience. The idyllic setting and wealth surrounding the characters is a great backdrop, it has that feeling of Revenge about it. We are given small crumbs throughout the book which make the story clearer but when the big reveal came it did so suddenly and without warning and was not what I could have predicted at all.

I find it nice that I can still pick up books of this genre and enjoy them because it truly allows you to take a real escapism moment away from books aimed at your age group which can often become bogged down in marriage, families and the struggles which sometimes its nice to pretend you don't have yourself.

I couldn't recommend this book highly enough it was excellent, a nice quick read with a great story and an ending which was worth waiting for.

I've got mixed feelings about this book mainly due to the love-hate relationship i've got with it. We were liars is a fast paced book and great for a quick read. Like everyone else, i was waiting for the plot twist to blow me away and Lockhart didn't disappoint. However, there are a great number of unusual occurrences that are just plain weird and they just don't make sense. I absolutely hated the main character, she's got absolutely no personality and none of the other ‘liars' do either. Personally, I believe the book lacked character development for our main characters and the writing style was just daunting asl. The themes of the book didn't have any great impact on me and neither did the plot twist as i didn't establish an attachment to any of the liars. On the other hand, i'm obsessed with the little fantasy stories that were incorporated, an absolute masterpiece. The aunts have such an intricate persona; The book truly gives me an insight to how rich people live and their miseries. Overall, I'd recommend it to anyone who'd like to enjoy the book for an evening reading session.

2.5/5

My thoughts

Liar, Liars, pants on fire . Fire ... FiRe FIREeeeeeEeee !!!! mad cackle


This lovely summer abode is full of half truths, half lies and loss somewhere, here and there. I'm not allowed to go into specifics so let start what I'm able to mention.

We were liars consists of 90% of nothing that happens. Yes there are conversations between characters ,flashbacks and king leer fairy tale-esque chapters. The excitement only happened in the last 40 odd pages. I have enjoyed slow moving or plot lacking books in the past. And in most cases my love of the characters are the reason for this . I can not say this while reading we were liars . And here I say I did not feel attached to any of them . They are spoiled rich kids and their spoiled fucking family ( pardon for my language ) . I felt meh towards the MC.

The writing

I have grown fond of lyrical and poetic prose. But miss Lockhart did not do it for me. I do have to add that I loved the king leer chapters. I've recently studied it in English class and it was nice to see it used in someway.

I did however not like the description of the Indian male love interest. I don't know what's she means with it but could she not have worded it differently . A sentence from the galley

“He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee “ 5%

Maybe I'm overreacting . Does she mean coffee as a likeness to the darker skin tone.

Romance

The romance is nothing special but useful to me personally. I used my real life crush to in the place of the love interest ( btw my straight crush is Indian also ). And used him in the story to get over my unrequited love/ crush thingy . The big reveal and the circumstances were used to get over it. #amIMorbid ?. Unrequited love thingy is a bitch . So that's something personal . #stopFalling4thestr8'ies


To wrap this up I found this book pretentious. I'm not ashamed to be the black sheep and also will not pick an other book John Green praises and blurbs. I've not read any green book but I'm 100% I will not like it as well. The same with Rainbow Rowell . I do however maybe want to try Lockhart ‘s previous books . I did not like it but you might . A lot of people surely do.

This book is truly amazing. It has that beautiful lyrical style of writing which makes the lines completely fun to say out loud. The characters are deep and well developed. You know and love all of the dysfunctional cast before long. I love that it constantly adds pieces to help lead you toward the answer to the big mysteries of the story. I won't spoil. It is definitely worth reading if you are up to a cry your eyes out novel. This was one book that literally (and I mean literally) made me sob. (I was on a busy plane no less, attempting not to cry out loud and wake my row-mates). Despite that, I wouldn't call it a tragedy. Not exactly. I would place it more solidly in the The Fault in Our Stars area. It will hurt you, but in a meaningful way. It was very very painful. Read with caution, but it is definitely worth the time.

Can you fix something that was already broken to begin with?

A nice little book about terrible and narcissistic people who parade and bath in their money on their small private island. Status is all that counts.

A nice little book about those terrible peoples kids, who doesn't want to be a part of all those intrigues. They want to grow to be better people than their parents and want to make a change.

But how? How to save them from themselves? Sometimes it needs a tragedy to bring people back together and start caring again.

I nearly returned this to the library before I finished. Thank god I stuck it out.

This did not feel like other e. lockhart books at all, its much darker and more convoluted than her other tales and I was feeling rather disappointed until about three quarters of the way through when our narrator gets her memory back and I saw all the previous events in a new light. It was just like Code Name Verity: suddenly I neded to read the book again from the beginning.

My only real complaint is that it wasn't what I was expecting, I wanted something happier and more fluffy, which is obviously more a reflection of me than the book.

I don't know how I came across this book as I usually do not pick up YA. There's a reason for that. This book is for your teenager- a young teenager. There is no cursing and no sex which is exceedingly rare and thus I know it will appeal to parents of readers. I did not love this book mainly because the main character was so self-involved, which is not unexpected in a 15 year old who has suffered trauma. So I think this book is excellent for teenagers, just not for this 40-something year old. One thing I loved- the map of the private island at the front of the book. I needed help visualizing all the houses and spots the narrator referenced. The map was a great choice.

For real? THIS was a best seller? This is one of the most BORING books I've ever read. The first three quarters of the book is so slow and redundant. I didn't care about a single character and as a result, didn't care about the mild and predictable climax. Skip it. I only gave it a two because it ended quickly.

I picked this one up as the first installation in a book club between friends, suggested by a member as it is her favourite book ever. It is fairly outside of my usual wheelhouse, so reading something different was a refreshing experience. This is a young adult book following Cadence, who is missing memories of a summer two years ago due to an accident.

Every summer her family descends on their private island, and the firm hierarchy of the family becomes constricting again. I really like the glimpses of family interactions between the aunts, especially the different tactics they use to one up each other. There is a lot of passive aggression, backhanded manoeuvring and using their children as weapons. I thought this was the most realistic aspect of this story because I have seen it in real life. It really helped the book for me, because otherwise I think I would have felt like I could not relate or emphasise with the characters.

This family is unfathomably rich, and it genuinely didn't feel real to me. This was worsened because the main characters are teens, but really don't read like teens. One character constantly mentions “sexual intercourse”, and they never contract their sentences (I am versus I'm). This really added to the surreal vibe, which did intensify the atmosphere. The book also took the time to touch on important topics such as privilege and racism, but I don't feel like it really did much with it.

All in all, I think this is a well crafted book and I can't deny the quality. If you are into contemporary or literary fiction this book could do well for you. I didn't personally resonate with the book, but I can see why so many do.