Sarah Reviews: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Pages: 225
Publishing Company: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 9780385741262
My Rating:    
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

Review:
Wow. This book was definitely not what I expected. It is not a light, fluffy contemporary. There is tons of mystery, suspense, and a dark feel to this story. This book is about Cadence's attempt to find out what happened during summer 15. Her family spends each summer on their island and she spends time with her cousins and their friend Gat. However, summer 15 she has an accident and the majority of the book is about her trying to figure out what happened. 

What I loved about this story was the complexity of the characters and how they lived by putting on a facade for others. How the family needed to always seem and act a certain way to others is something I feel like a lot of people can relate to. Cadence struggles with this in her family and the dynamic there is interesting to see unfold and the tension between everyone. 

I think the liars were a really interesting group and would have loved to learn more about them before summer 15 and how they got the name the "liars". I never seemed to trust Gat though. Something about him didn't sit right with me and I'm just itching to know more about his life outside of the summers spent on the island. I loved how they all had different lessons/mottos they shared with each other. Cadence's saying, "do the think you were always afraid to do" is actually something I love by, but not the extremes as her...more like about being confident and whatnot.

E. Lockhart's writing style somehow manages to make the story seem longer than it actually is. I would feel like I had been reading so much yet only 5 pages had been read. Mostly, the ending has an insane twist that made me rethink the whole book but also make the story make completely sense...I know it's complicated but this book really makes you think and keeps you on your toes.

Also, this is the Booksplosion book of the month for June. There will be a live show on July 2nd on PolandbananasBOOKS so check it out!

Peace. Love. Read On.
xoxo Sarah