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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.
If there’s one thing I have to say about this book it’s that We Were Stupid would have been a much more appropriate title than We Were Liars. I was more convinced of the characters’ stupidity than them calling themselves the Liars. Perhaps the title with regards to liars was supposed to raise intrigue. Indeed, it did. I was very curious about the book. In the end though, I was sorely disappointed.
What aggravates me the most as a reader is being led on. Actually, no, being led on generally aggravates me as a person. That definitely contributed to my annoyance by the time I was done reading. See, there was all the hype about “the twist” that elevated We Were Liars so much whenever I read reviews.
When I finally got to “the twist” I just thought, “That’s it?” I was nowhere near excited. Quite the opposite, I was confused — confused that this is what apparently stirred so much hype and endless excitement.
Half-way through the book I started questioning the whole setting. I went into the book knowing nothing, except that there would be a grand twist. Yet before everything was revealed, I had already figured out what that twist was. And it wasn’t because I made a million guesses, thereby ensuring at least one guess would be right. No. I guessed it. When I guessed it, I wanted to stop reading, knowing that if I was right, I would hate the book. I continued anyway.
One thing I will divulge about We Were Liars is that Cadence suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Lockhart used this to her advantage to create an unreliable narrator. I appreciated Lockhart’s experimental approach to the book. That appreciation however stopped there. While the book captured the dreamy moments okay, it failed at believably portraying lucid moments. The grounding in reality was completely missing, which drastically reduced its impact on me.
View Spoiler »To make matters worse, the writing style was incredibly jumpy. I didn’t like that at all, although I concede that it was somewhat reflective of the narrator’s state of mind. She was after all a very unreliable narrator.
Ultimately, the whole book came off as a pity party. I couldn’t bring myself to care for any of the characters. The potential talking points of race and class also fell flat. It could’ve been explored more but wasn’t. Such a shame, really.
This book has gotten so much hype and lots of goodish reviews, but I really enjoyed reading your review. I hate pity-party books. I’m like #97 in line to check out this book from my library but I’m thinking I should cancel my hold… maybe it’s not worth it.
Lol. #97 is a loooong way to go! I’d say this is one of those books you may want to read just so you know what everyone’s been going on about. So maybe don’t cancel you reservation. We Were Liars is fairly short, so it won’t weigh you down too much if you don’t like. Besides, who knows? With all the extreme reactions (love or hate), you might end up liking it ;)
I wasn’t very happy about the twist either, like you said, because I was expecting something realistic and ended up with some more surreal/paranormal. I didn’t quite hate it all the way, in fact I am one of the few who is actually feels in the middle of the book as opposed to loving it or hating it, but I definitely understand the frustration.
I have to admit that your review made me laugh! My friend Joey read this book and I was again entertained by his review as well. I won’t be reading this book (I already know the spoiler too), but I do agree with you that it definitely sounds like a pity party and it’s like saying ‘I’m privileged but people should feel sorry for me anyways’. It didn’t sound like any of the characters were likable in this book. I did hear about race mentioned in this book and it is a shame that it wasn’t explored more, since there could have been a lot to be said about the topic. Great Review :)