Sarah Poultney
Written on Nov 15, 2021
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. Don't miss the #1 New York Times bestselling prequel, Family of Liars.
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.
Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.
"Thrilling, beautiful, and blisteringly smart, We Were Liars is utterly unforgettable." —John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars
- ISBN10 0385741278
- ISBN13 9780385741279
- Publish Date 29 May 2018 (first published 1 January 2014)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Ember
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 320
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780385741279
Reviews
chrisoatham
Written on Jun 16, 2020
Amber (The Literary Phoenix)
Written on May 4, 2018
We Were Liars was insanely predictable. I had it more or less figured out only a few chapters in, then confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt less than halfway through. I was bored. The author occasionally liked to use flowery language to describe pain, but it was just annoying. There's a difference between beautiful, romantic prose and just ... being pretentious?
Throw in a basketful of flat, unimpressive characters (who are not "liars", by the way. I feel like to call yourself "liars" you need to lie occasionally) and NO plot and you've got this book. Plus, all the health concerns in this book was portrayed in the flattest stereotypes:
- chronic migraines = drug addict
- OCD = clean all the things
- depression = walking around late at night in a nightgown crying
- dementia = calling people the wrong name and getting mildly annoyed
It was just... disappointing. It felt like one of those quickly written thrillers for a buck. You want to feel for Cadence (her tragedy is genuinely horrifying) but you can't because she's so apathetic and unrelateable. Unless maybe you're the kid of a trust fun baby and your grandpa owns his own island. Who knows.
(It's not unreadable... it's just... there are better books out there to spend your time on.)
Jo
Written on Aug 8, 2017
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart is a book I've been loosely planning to read for a while. Planning to read because a colleague at work raved about it when she read when it first came out, but only loosely because there's very little in way of a blurb. All I knew was that it was about rich teens, and I assumed they would be spoilt and mean, and that's just not my kind of book. However, I was recently recommending books to a customer, and in telling me what she had read before, she and her father both raved about We Were Liars. They implied that it dealt with a serious topic, and that it was very powerful. Their enthusiasm really piqued my interest, and so I finally bought it. And wow. This book is absolutely incredible.
I know the blurb and summary doesn't tell you very much, and I know that annoyed me before I read it, but it really is best that you go into this book knowing very little. I will tell you that it's about three generations of a rich family - grandparents, aunties and mother, and cousins - and a friend, and it's set on their private island. It's about relationships, familial and platonic, and it's about privilege and power. There is a mystery, a secret, and a huge twist that I absolutely did not see coming. One that blew my mind.
The story is narrated by Cadence, one of the cousins, who the story, for the most part, revolves around; Cadence, Johnny, Mirren, and their friend Gat. The story jumps from present day, to Cadence recalling what happened two Summers previously. The characters are just wonderful, all so different, and fully formed.
Also, this book is short. A 225 pages kind of short. Which just makes this whole story even better, because Lockhart has a serious skill to tell a complete and full story in so few pages, where you're left guessing the whole way through. The whole way through. There is not a single word wasted, there's no extraneous description, every single word is purposeful. We Were Liars must have been edited to within an inch of it's life, but it's fantastic for it. It's emotional, and heartbreaking, and powerful, and all of this is accomplished in only a few words.
We Were Liars is just amazing, and you should read it. I can't say any more than that, really. Read it, and prepare to have your jaw drop.
mrs_mander_reads
Written on Jul 15, 2017
I have to admit, I never saw the ending coming. I had everything fully-formed in my head and all wrapped up well before it actually ended. So when Cadence finally remembered the truth, it wrecked me. So emotional.
Some of my favorite words:
“Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,
then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth.
It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.”
“I lie there and wait, and remind myself over and over that it doesn’t last forever. That there will be another day and after that, yet another day. One of those days, I’ll get up and eat breakfast and feel okay.”
“Every time Gat said these things, so casual and truthful, so oblivious - my veins opened. My wrists split. I bled down my palms. I went light-headed. I'd stagger from the table or collapse in quite shameful agony, hoping no-one in the family would notice ... Gat almost always saw, though. When blood dripped on my bare feet or poured over the book I was reading, he was kind. He wrapped my wrists in a soft white gauze and asked me questions about what had happened... as if talking about something could make it better. As if wounds needed attention.”
Stephanie
Written on Dec 16, 2016
readingwithwrin
Written on Jun 10, 2016
“We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.”
I put off reading this book, for a year because of how much hype it had gotten last year, and with hyped books they can either be hit or big misses. This one was kind of a hit for me, but not as big as I wanted it to be.
Cady and her cousins and Gat (Cousins kind of step cousin) are heirs to a distinguished family whose grandfather is obsessed with stock and appearances. This also leads to the children’s mother trying to show off to grandfather how good they are in order to be the one who get everything when he passes away. None of them care about that/or want that though so they don’t do it unless the mothers are around. All they want to do instead is spend the summer together on the island in their own world.
You don’t start noticing that something isn’t quite right though until Cady is finally allowed to run to the summer island and starts having memories of what happened, plus things are just weird in general. Not only will no one tell her what happened, the cousins are different as well. This is when the plot twists and you start putting all of the pieces together.
“Be sad, be sorry-but don't shoulder it.”
For the first part of this book I didn’t really understand what had happened, and I just found it all to be rather confusing. It didn’t really start to make since and hold my attention until about the middle of the second part, when we start to see what had happened that summer 15 and why everything had changed since. I know everyone says this and I was hoping I would have to as well, but you truly can’t tell much about this book without spoiling it and ruining the whole story. I’m sorry. If you like mystery books that suck you in after the first hundred pages, and who also has unreliable protagonist then this book will interest you.
“The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.”
Can I just say this though… what were they thinking in doing what they did in summer of 15? How would that have solved anything?
Chelsea
Written on Oct 20, 2015
So much hype surrounding this book. I was expecting amazing things.
My New BFF & My Crush
I don’t feel like I connected to any of the characters in this book so there was no character that I loved enough to make my BFF. I mostly found the main character to be annoying, whiny, and childish. I didn’t really like any of the other characters either.
Writing Style
The best part of this book was the writing. It was almost poetic in a way. I looooved it. It grabbed your attention right away and I kept thinking about how pretty some sentences were. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for the rest of the book.
Closing Thoughts
Ok. So. I’m going going to sugar coat my opinion here. I didn’t hate this book which is why it got 3 star instead of 1. I didn’t enjoy this book though. I’m not going to lie, I had the ending figure out before the halfway mark. Not everything, I’m not magic, but a good chunk of what makes this ending a surprise. It just seemed so obvious to me. I’m not saying those who didn’t figure it out are dumb though! Maybe I’ve just read too many similar books. Also I didn’t get the whole Liars club thing. Actually there was a lot in this book I didn’t understand which drove me crazy. I get that it’s supposed to have this big mystery but I found it mostly annoying when I didn’t get certain details. While tons of people found this book really unique and exciting, I found it boring and predictable which are the two last things I need in a book. I’m not saying don’t read it either. I’m sure it would be a good book if you weren’t me. I am a little disappointed though.
reveriesociety_
Written on Jul 12, 2015
I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a good read. If you've been paying attention, you probably know by now that the end is supposed to be mind-blowing. And it is. Yup, this is one more girl here who can vouch for the unexpectedness of it. So, you can worry a little less about that.
But as for the rest of the story...
The writing was hard to get through though. It was different, and it worked in certain parts. A mysterious writing style, for a mysterious plot. Except, there were times where the plot called for an emotional connection, and that's where it failed to serve its purpose. The writing style didn't work too much with those. It felt detached, and flat.
Candace told us and explained how much she grieved, how miserable she was, how no one understood her -in just a half obnoxious way- but the way it was written didn't let me even try to empathize with that, sadly.
It was a bit confusing, but I think that's part of the lure. You get used to it, because soon things start to make sense, more or less.
It's better when the pity party spreads to her cousins too. They all mope about their family, and how oh so fake it is.
That's how it goes for most of the book. Don't get me wrong, it's quite good. Because the family is really messed up. It's very softcore The Girl with the Fire Tatoo, now that I think about it, in terms of messed up families.
Anyway, the guys then do something really stupid, and you understand a few things here and there. Other things are revealed, and you finally feel it's been worth it. I felt it. I was satisfied, even though the middle of the book left me disappointed.
This is one of those books that are really not for everyone. But one I would suggest to try, because despite the flaws, there's a good story there.
Briana @ Pages Unbound
Written on Jun 25, 2015
The story follows teenage Cadence Sinclair Eastman, daughter of the wealthy, privileged Sinclair clan, as she spends a summer on her family’s private island, hanging out with her cousins and trying to remember what happened last summer on the island when she woke up wet on the sand, dressed only in her underwear, with no memory of why she was there.
One might assume that part of the draw of a story that takes place on a private family island would be the glamour of portraying such a life of luxury and wealth, but Lockhart nips that right in the bud by making Cadence wallow in white guilt. She hates her privilege. She hates her family for being privileged. She is a moral special snowflake for being the only one of her clan determined to hate being rich. Everyone else is shallow and short-sighted. Only she has depth and morals and can see her family for the selfish people they are.
I know our society is currently very focused on learning to be aware of your own privileges in life. I assume Cadence’s portrayal is a response to this and is an attempt to make her seem either relatable (she’s richer than you but she doesn’t want to be!) or likable (she isn’t superficial like the rest of her family!). Personally, I think the effect is just preachy. I could see if the book wanted to portray the “dark side” of the rich and show how money cannot make you happy, how Cadence’s family suffers from too-high expectations, the pressure to be perfect, the stress of having to look perfect even if their marriages or their careers are in shambles. I just think the novel goes too far with Cadence’s constant speeches about having to reject all her privilege.
The plot itself is generally unremarkable. Cadence and her cousins hang out on their island, swimming and having cookouts and whatever else people do to celebrate summer on a beach, while their parents have spats about inheritances and who the favorite child is. I have no idea what the title is supposed to referencing, as none of Cadence’s cousins seem to liars and lying doesn’t really play a role in the plot. Maybe they’re just all lying about being happy to be Sinclairs???
The final twist is the only reason I bumped my Goodreads rating of the book up to three stars. I honestly did not see the twist coming. It took me completely by surprise and added a whole new dimension to the story. This single moment of the novel is gloriously impressive. However, I don’t think it’s enough to make it worth reading the rest of the book, so I recommend passing on this one.
Initial Thoughts: The ending--wild, unpredictable, imaginative, and tragic--really saved the book. Up until then, I mostly thought the story was heavy-handed, the story of a rich privileged white girl who is the only one in her family to have the perspicacity to see how privileged and white and rich she is and feel guilty about it and rage against capitalism and the patriarchy and whatever. Pretty preachy, all things considered.