Goodreads Archive Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

WE WERE LIARS

Author: E. Lockhart

Publication Date: 05/13/2014

Audience: Young Adult

Genre: Contemporary, Mystery

 

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.

 

Picture and Summary From Goodreads

 

 REVIEW 

 

This book was one heck of a ride.  There isn't a lot I can say about it without giving away spoilers so I'm going to stick to the basics.

 

The logistics:

The writing was crazy good, almost lyrical.  I actually had a little bit of a hard time getting into the rhythm of it but I'm glad I didn't let that deter me because before long I found myself captivated. 

 

We Were Liars is told from the POV of 18yo Cadence who has grown up in the lap of luxury where things aren't as shiny and happy as they appear.  For most of the story Cadence is trying to piece together what happened the summer she turned 15.  All she knows is that it was bad enough to cause her to suffer from amnesia.  There were a few times that I thought I was on to something only to turn the page and be left completely stumped again. I had no problems staying focused on the story but at the same time I couldn't wait to get to the end, just so I would know what happened.

 

It was a small book compared to some of the monsters on my shelf but I found that it took a little bit longer for me to get through.  I chalk this up to the fact that I found myself stopping and thinking about the story as I was reading it.  Not that I don't think about stories as I read them normally but there were parts of this book that required me to put more thought into it.

 

 

Bottom Line:

You really need to go into this book knowing nothing about it.  Give it a chance when you first start it, don't be scared off by the different (beautiful) writing.  And just enjoy it.