We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
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.
Published: May 13th 2014
Never, never judge a book by its cover. This is what We Were Liars has taught me. At first glance, I immediately thought it would be a light Gossip Girl –ish sort of read. The typical ‘summer love’ style of book.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
This story transcends from the façade a broken family puts on to remain perfect in the public eye, to growing up, to loss—to first love. A navigation through childhood to adulthood, companionship and friendship to isolation and a broken heart.
It was absolutely stunning. Lockhart has a gorgeous style of prose that enthralls the reader. Some lines read like verses of poetry.
The protagonist, Cadence (Cady) is beautifully broken. The story is seen from her eyes and we journey from the present to the past with her. We see rebellion, loneliness, tragedy and love through her experiences growing up. Yes, I just made it sound cheesy and cliché; it however is quite the opposite.
The ending of the book is entirely unexpected. It reminded me of the beauty of the ending of the film The Sixth Sense. You may think I just delivered an epic spoiler, when in fact I have not. The ending is one I guarantee you won’t predict. It is one that is beautiful and tragic, while entirely unexpected. The shocking ending doesn’t frustrate the reader. Yes, it breaks your heart and makes you think; you analyze your own world and see things from a different light. This is one of the first books that has made me cry in years. As I read the last line I probably stared at the empty white-space following for fifteen-minutes. Just thinking how beautiful and paradoxically how ugly our world is.
A book that makes you think…far beyond the world of the characters…absolutely stunning and brilliant.
Thank you, NetGalley for the digital review copy.
Lisa Loves Words 