We Were Liars

by E. Lockhart

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review and more on my blog October Tune.

Actual rating: 2,5 - I honestly don't know what to think about this book. I heard a lot about it when it was first released, and they were all four or five star reviews and everyone loved this book. So I was convinced I would love it too. But when I finally started reading it, I didn't like it at all. I thought perhaps that I was reading the wrong book, but it was definitely We Were Liars.

First of all, I didn't like the characters. The Sinclairs, some amazing American family with lots of money and a bloody private island with four massive houses on it. They are beautiful, they are rich, they are amazing and they are basically trying to be as emotionless as they can. No, I did not like this family at all. The only one I kind of liked was Gat, who was someone's cousin or something like that, though he was also a bit weird at some points in the story. It was his fault that the group (Cady, Mirren, Johnny and Gat) were called the Liars, though I never really understood why they were called that in the first place. In the end, the only reason I kind of related to Cady was because she had these horrible headaches that sometimes leave her unable to do anything but lie in bed, and I do sometimes have those (not very often anymore luckily, but I used to have them a lot a couple of years back). Other than that, I could NOT relate to any of the characters.

Then there was the 'thing' that had happened on the island that Cady couldn't remember. First of all I had no idea what was going on, later on I started speculating what it could have been (I ended up being so wrong). But the thing is, apparently we jump from 'summer seventeen' to 'summer fifteen' throughout the story but it's never really clear which is which. I was confused all the time because I just had NO idea where we were in the story at that point. It was very very annoying. I did like the little mystery of 'oh god what happened that was so bad Cady can't remember', and when we finally found out, I thought it was kind of well... sad actually.

But yeah, I just didn't enjoy this story that much, and I was actually really glad when I finished. I considered DNF-ing the book several times, but I just wanted to find out what had happened to Cady in 'summer fifteen' so badly that I ended up finishing the book. But now I think I'd rather had just read a spoiler on the internet (even though the summary says you're supposed to lie about the ending, I mean what the hell seriously?). No, We Were Liars was not the book for me, alas. I did like the little map in the front of the book, showing what the island looked like. Pretty handy at some points, because sometimes I just had NO idea what the hell they were talking about (but then they would have been talking about a house or something).

If you like mysteries that revolve around a snobby rich American family, you should definitely check out this book. If you don't, well... You should just do what you want - read the book or don't, it's your choice.

My opinion on this book in one gif: