The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: We Were Liars

Series: We Were Liars #1

Author: E. Lockhart

Genre: Young Adult, Psychological Thriller, Contemporary

Rating: 4 stars

Review:

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 New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.

And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

We Were Liars is a thought provoking, heartbreaking book! And I really enjoyed it.

This is not my typical read. I love a good contemporary, but I don’t read psychological thrillers. I did enjoy it, though it was sad and darker than what I normally read.

This book was written kind of disjointed, but I thought that fit in well with Cady’s debilitating headaches and memory loss. Speaking of Cady’s headaches, I loved how they were described. It felt really real, how Lockhart choose to describe them.

I enjoyed the main characters, with Johnny being my favorite. I also really enjoyed Mirren. I want to know more about these two characters- they are so interesting. I enjoyed Gat, but he also wasn’t my favorite character. I didn’t really see his relationship with Cady, either. I think it could have been something, and I was getting vibes, but I wanted a little more.

This family is the most dysfunctional family in the entire universe! This is the second time I read this book and before reading it this time I was trying to describe the book to my mom and I was like “The family is this rich white family who made some mistakes, but really, they’re not that bad.” Yeah, I was wrong. This family sucks, especially the grandfather. But on the other hand, you could tell he cared about his family, and the daughters just weren’t raised in a household that taught them how to be functional, kind human beings.

The ending was very shocking, and I loved it, though it was heartbreaking. It truly was a sad ending. If you go into this expecting this to be a fun summer read, then you are in for a surprise. This book is heavy and twisty.

We Were Liars is a wonderful beach read, if you are looking to dive into a mystery on a private island following a dysfunctional family.

Quotes:

“‘And honestly, Cady, I love you, but I’m fucking tired. I just want to lie down and be done. All this happened a very long time ago, for me.’”

“‘Be sad, be sorry-but don’t shoulder it.’”

“‘Be a little kinder than you have to, Cady, and things will be all right.’”