A Bookish Bee: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart || Book Review

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Publication Date: May 13, 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover

Synopsis:
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.

Non-Spoiler Thoughts:

Everyone says to go into this books knowing nothing about it. So that's what I did. I stayed away from anything and everything regarding We Were Liars and I'm so glad I did. This was not what I had expected. I didn't know what would happen and for a while I was confused. The ending gets to you and just wraps everything up, like a nice little gift that ends up breaking your heart. In a good way. No, not in a good way but still being so amazed to what just happened.

When reviewers and people said this book was beautiful and haunting, they weren't lying. You don't know what's going to happen and the synopsis in the book is so vague it merely creates questions, forcing you to read the book. It was a fast read - only took me a day - but E. Lockhart writes in a way that makes you feel like you're reading a 600 page novel instead of a 250 page novel. But it isn't bad because the amount of information packed into the book is so captivating. You get sucked into the novel and you don't want to stop reading and then you start crying because it's so sad and beautiful and sigh.

As much as I really want to tell you what this book is about, I don't want to spoil it just yet. Just know that this book was beautifully well written and captivating and hauntingly brilliant. I recommend this book.

Now, if you haven't read the book and want to proceed not knowing what this book is about, please make your way to another book review of mine or feel free to exit. If not, please continue on to hear about the specifics. Thank you.

Spoiler-y Thoughts:

Oh, my god. This book destroyed me. Our protagonist, Cadence Sinclair Easton, comes from an old-money family who's grandfather owns a private island. Every summer, the extended family visits the island for a vacation. Cadence, along with her cousins Johnny and Mirren and friend Gat, have called themselves the Liars and have been inseparable since the age of eight. I would have thought that this book was going to be about them fulfilling dares and getting into dangerous circumstances but I couldn't have been more far from the truth.

During the summer of fifteen (they were fifteen years old), Cadence has an accident that leads her to forget what happened that summer. Because of this and her painful migraines, she does not go back to the island for the next two summers and she does not keep in touch with the Liars. She goes back summer of seventeen to finally learn what happened two years ago. To say I was surprised at the revelation would be an understatement. I don't know how I didn't see it coming but the Liars decided to burn down the Sinclair estate after learning that their moms kept arguing about what they will inherit. Seeing their family almost fall apart because of materialistic things, the Liars come up with a plan to burn the estate down, hoping it'll stop all fighting. In my head, all I could think about was how bad that plan was and when it was put into action I wanted to strangle Cadence. Obviously, the books will burn faster; why in the world to start the fire when you don't know where the others are? The plan was so flawed and they were under the influence of wine when they did it but it was still so aggravating. When you learn about the fire, you also learn that the two family dogs were stuck in the house. At first, I thought that was the most depressing thing and I thought that was the most shocking thing, but then it gets worse. We learn, to our dismay, that Johnny, Mirren and Gat never came out of the house. They died in that fire, the fire that only Cadence got out of. The kicker of it all, during the summer of seventeen, Cadence sees and speaks to the Liars and many have speculated on whether they were ghosts or hallucinations.

I personally think that they were hallucinations, that Cadence's mind was so messed up that she just thought the Liars were still alive. She went to the island to find out the truth and perhaps her mind created something to help her figure it out.

This book will keep you guessing from start to finish, unless you are really perceptive and totally guess what happened.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.