We Were Liars
by E. Lockhart
Published: May 13, 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Format: Hardcover (240 pages)
Source: Purchased
moreA 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, ...
The subtitle for We Were Liars should be, “I Can’t Remember the Really Stupid Thing I Did Last Summer.” I read this book because there was a lot of hype around it. “Crazy Twist Ending! Must Read!” is what everyone said. I don’t normally read contemporary YA books, but I decided this one might be fun because of all the hype around it.
My first impression of We Were Liars was that there was a map at the beginning. I LOVE MAPS. Are there more contemporary books out there with maps? Because if there are, you need to tell me so I can read them all.
The short sentences and broken lines made the writing feel very poetic. It also showed the broken mind of the main character, Cadence. To me, I didn’t enjoy the reading experience as much as I could have because it felt like I was impatiently waiting to get to The Twist. The Twist was pretty cool and unexpected but it’s not like a twist that has never been done before. Ironically, I read this because of the hype about the ending but because I knew there was a crazy ending I couldn’t enjoy it all the way.
The biggest questions I had while reading this were: “What happened to Cadence?” and “Why does she keep giving her things away?” The first question is eventually answered, but I felt like the second question was left up to me as the reader to decide. Cadence’s attitude towards things and objects was really interesting.
“…the accumulation of beautiful objects is a life goal. Whoever dies with the most stuff wins. Wins what? is what I’d like to know.”
– E. Lockhart, We Were Liars pg 46
Overall, it was an interesting read with beautiful writing but the over-hyped ending left me a little disappointed.
Content Rating: High, for strong language.
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About E. Lockhart
E. Lockhart is the author of We Were Liars, Fly on the Wall, Dramarama, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and the Ruby Oliver quartet: The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, The Treasure Map of Boys, and Real Live Boyfriends. How to Be Bad was co-written with Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski.
Disreputable History was a Printz Award honor book, a finalist for the National Book Award, and recipient of the Cybils Award for best young adult novel. We Were Liars is a New York Times bestseller.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
I have been wanting to read this one like really, really badly for a while now, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet and it sucks! I think I’ll go get it at the library because soon I’ll have read a spoiler and then I’ll never be able to face it.
Great review. So far, yours gives the most information :)
I just finished audiobooking this one today and I didn’t really like it. I also don’t like contemporary YA and thought this book was a snooze fest. I didn’t like all the weird imagery like in the beginning where she said he dad shoots her, or that a wave crashed over her on the boat. I would get excited that something real was happening, and ended up disappointing.
I too knew there would be a “big twist” at the end. And it was a good twist, but not worth reading the whole book.
I remember the part about her dad shooting her and i had to keep re-reading it because I didn’t realize it was imagery. I liked some aspects of this book, but I think the ending is way over hyped.
I guessed the ending pretty quick, so I wasn’t too impressed with this book. I thought it was slow. I loved the map at the beginning too! I also liked the geneology chart.