We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, Perfect but Still Broken…

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Published by Delacorte Press on May 13, 2014
Pages: 228

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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

The only word I can think of to describe this book is…WHAT!?

I read this book a little while ago, and to be honest, I had some mixed emotions. It was interesting enough, but the writing style reminded me of Shatter Me. It had multiple unnecessary metaphors and odd, confusing sentence breaks.

All the same, it was a powerful and deep story and one that really makes you think. The plot picked up towards the end, and by the ending, I was content.

We Were Liars follows a seventeen-year-old girl living in the perfect house, with her perfect, rich family. Every summer they take a gigantic vacation to their perfect private island. There, Cadence and her cousins (“the liars”) hang out and make memories…. until summer fifteen. The only thing Cadence can remember from the visit is deep pain before being rushed to the hospital.

From then on her mother does her best to keep her away from the island. Finally, summer seventeen arrives and Cadence figures out the truth…

Cadence is going through a lot, but no matter what she can’t remember what happened at the end of summer fifteen. Since the story is told from her perspective this mystery leaves you on your toes, always wanting to read more.

As I mentioned earlier, this book was very mixed for me, and it had multiple elements that I loved, as well as multiple elements that weren’t my favorite. It had an AMAZING plot, and mystery/eerie element, but on the flip side was confusing, repetitive, and the writing style was difficult to read.

First off, the good things! Let me just start by saying that the plot was out of this world! If you dig past some of the confusing and repetitive portions, underneath is a remarkable storyline. I was captivated by the cliffhangers/plot twists, and I always wanted to know what would happen next. Lockhart did an outstanding job with the storyline which really helped me finish the book.

I was also fascinated by the eerie factor throughout the read. It emits a little bit of a creepy/strange vibe which is different from a lot of normal young adult books. It seems like there is always an underlying secret that isn’t revealed. It draws you in!

This mystery element motivated me to continue this book. By the end, I was super glad that I did!

Now onto the not so nice things… I think that the biggest issue I had was just the writing style.

The sentence

Would randomly break

For no reason

And that got on my nerves,

Just like…

I’m writing right now.

It somewhat reminded me of Shatter Me, in which I loved the plot but not so much the writing style. It was hard to follow and sometimes would prevent me from wanting to read further. It became this difficult debate of whether I got through it to see what happened, or if it was just too much.

This writing style also created repetitiveness and confusion. Because the book was so focused on metaphors, when it mixed with the writing style it became hard to keep the plot moving.

Since metaphors were such a big chunk of the book, there wasn’t as much time to create character development, setting, or to make the book move faster. Most of the other characters didn’t have deep personalities, and it was hard to connect to anyone.

Personally, I had a problem with this. While the actual story was phenomenal, the writing somewhat ruined it. Yet, I continued reading, and by the end, I was pretty satisfied.

Overall, I’m not sure how to feel about We Were Liars. There were parts that I strongly disliked, but also parts that I thoroughly enjoyed. Deciding what exactly to rate the book was a tough task, but I think I’ve settled on 3.5/5 stars. I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in the plot, although I probably won’t be reading from E. Lockhart in the future. Anyways, I hope this review was helpful, and that you have a great rest of your day! Happy reading!

Favorite Quote:

We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken – Page 253