We Were Liars Review

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Series: None

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Publication Date: May 13, 2014

Genre: Realistic Fiction; Contemporary; Romance; Mystery; Young Adult

Pages: 227

Format: Hardback

goodreads

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.

The epitome of class and style. The personification of erudition and grace. That is how I would describe Lockhart’s books. I haven’t read one of her books that I didn’t end up loving. Well…all two of them.

Cadence Sinclair Eastman can’t remember the last summer she was in Beechwood. All she remembers is waking up alone on the beach, cold and wet from the sea. Her mother won’t tell her what happened. Everyone, including her cousins and her beloved Gat, is tiptoeing around her like she is an explosion with mass casualties waiting to happen. When she finally returns to the beach house on her grandfather’s private island, she is determine to remember. What she finds is nothing like what she thought, and will change her life in ways she’s not sure she’s ready for.

Ambiguity is one of my favorite ways authors start a book. When they just drop you in the middle of the story and it’s up to you to figure out the beginning and the end. Keeps me intrigued. It also exercises the mind, and that’s always fun. And let me tell you, did this book keep me entertained! There wasn’t a dull moment in We Were Liars. And I was always guessing. Constantly working out what exactly happened those two summers ago. And I was way, way, way off. I could not have been more wrong. And the twist! The oh-so-infamous twist! Oh, my God! It was so weird, but in the way that makes you go, “Holy-mother-of-everything good-in-the-world, I can’t believe that just happened!” It was so genius and yet so tragic; I honestly did not know whether I loathed or loved the author in that moment. I’m still on the fence, actually. My feelings change day by day.

The lyrical prose and elegant language that Lockhart used was to die for. It was so beautiful. You could feel and touch the emotions of the characters, fully understand the frustration and sadness of Cadence (mostly because you were just as frustrated and depressed from not understanding anything in those first few pages). While this book was in no way a poetry book, there were moments it seemed like it was. Lockhart effortlessly combined all the splendor of poetry with the fullness of an everyday novel. It added some spice and flavor, and, I have to say, it was delicious and supremely satisfying.

I would recommend this to all readers of Melina Marchetta (especially to the lovers of Jellicoe Road). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Marchetta’s and Lockhart’s writing are so similar. I love both, and I think others should make it a point to read them. This book was exquisite and one of my favorites. Plus, John Green read it, so who was I to say no?