We Were Liars by E. Lockhart [thoughts]

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
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Release Date: May 13th 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Series: none

 

 

Goodreads description: 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

I love E. Lockhart’s writing, and I of course saw a LOT of good reviews for We Were Liars before it came out, so it was an obvious go for me!

We Were Liars is about: A rich family that owns an island by Martha’s Vineyard and does rich family things. They are “perfect” and their life is a mess. Main character Cady is trying to piece together memories of an accident a few years ago and learns stuff she had forgotten about the family.

I have so many mixed feelings about this book. I saw a lot of hype and OMG!! about this book and the ENDING, but the twist was REALLY obvious to me. From the beginning, I had a good idea what was going on. I was actually hoping I was wrong so I could be all “OMG!!” too:

Pretty early in We Were Liars and I’ve got a theory or two. Hoping I’m wrong. But I’m liking it so far.

— Katy C (@ablightedone) May 19, 2014

It can’t be that obvious, right? Surely I’m wrong. — Katy C (@ablightedone) May 19, 2014

But it was what I thought it was. And that didn’t make the book bad or unenjoyable, but it did change the experience for me. Since I knew what was going on, I looked at events differently. I think some emotional attachment might have been lost, and I think if you’ve read it you might be able to see why. HOWEVER: I still really liked this book. It wasn’t what I expected and I wasn’t blown away, but I liked Cady and her journey a lot.

Cady went through a rough time, had to recover, and had to learn about herself and her family again. The view into a messed up family that pretends to be perfect but is really filled with bickering and pettiness was really insightful, because although not all families are horrible to each other, there are usually horrible moments in everyone’s life when you’re just like “WHY can’t everyone just be nice to each other?” And I think that’s a huge part of this book, looking at the why and trying to change things for the better, even if you go about it in a way that might add problems to your life.

The writing is amazing and there were a lot of quotes that were full of feeling and resonated. I didn’t save any particular ones (I tend to think I will go back and look through the book later but put it off and move on to the next book) but the writing is so lovely. And the island setting will make you wish you could fly somewhere nice and chill out on a private island. With books, of course!

I do think I would read We Were Liars again, I think it would benefit from a second read. I am pretty sure it’s going on my “buy list” even though I’m not dying for my own copy this second. I really like E. Lockhart’s writing and I definitely want to read anything she writes. I think this could be a good match for anyone who likes gritty stories, but if you’re good at figuring stories out, don’t hinge too much on the mystery/twist everyone raves about.

 

This is a really difficult book to talk about because of the setup and ending, so my review probably isn’t the best, sorry.

Have you read it? Were you shocked? Do you plan to read it?