We Were Liars
by E. Lockhart
Page Count: 240 pages
My rating: 4.7 stars
(Disclaimer: It's better to get into this book without having read anything about it. Neither a synopsis nor any comment. Even the slightest piece of information can ruin it for you. The suspense in this book is great and you want to enjoy it! So please read it before proceeding.)
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.
Detailed Review:
So this book follows the story of a family, the Sinclair family, that is bearing the patriarchal stereotype and that revolves around money. The head of the family is the Granddad that is married to Tipper (the grandmother) and they have three daughters: Carrie, Penny and Bess. In this story we have an unreliable narrator, Cadence, who is Penny's daughter and who we soon discover suffers from memory loss and migraines that cause her unbearable pain. So it's quite difficult to decide if we can trust her or not.
The book starts with Cadence telling us about her family, including all the family members, and how every summer they had this family island to go to. In the second chapter (the chapters are really short & the story is split into parts), she mentions an accident and that basically things changed after that but we're not yet in a position of solving this "puzzle".
The Sinclair family has low tolerance of something that can cause a scene and something different. For example we get to see Cadence's dad leaving both her and her mother and even if all Cadence was feeling was pain and rejection, her mother pushed her to show nothing, like this didn't even affect her. I think that was the first time in this book when I was sort-of shocked.
Then Cadence mentions the three houses, the Granddad built for the three daughters that later on plays an important role since the three mothers literally fight with each other for the houses.
And then we get the kids, the "Liars" as they call each other: Cadence, Johnny, Mirren and Gat.
Cadence, Johnny and Mirren are cousins, whereas Gat is the nephew of Carrie's new husband Ed (Carrie is Johnny's mother).
Following this family gets a little confusing, I know, and I had trouble keeping up with them at first and I had to go back and forth in the book so as to understand who is who. Practically all except Ed and Gat, are related to each other.
Practically the Liars are always hanging out together and Cadence is slowly falling in love with Gat.
Now the strange part starts when Cadence mentions summer 15 and how she remembers herself on the beach wearing only her underwear and suffering from hypothermia. She gets in the water and she hits her head as well. And that's where the true suspense story begins.
(Before that though, she remembers that she and Gat kissed and that her Granddad walked in on them; she also remembers that Gat had a girlfriend.)
Cadence doesn't remember what happened in summer 15 at all. There are blank spots in her mind and not only that but also she gets migraines that cause her extreme pain. That sounded quite intriguing to me when I first read it. Why wouldn't she remember what happened close to her accident but she was able to remember anything that happened earlier in summer 15?
In the next summer she wants to go back to Beechwood (the island) but her mother says that she can't so they send her in Europe with her Dad. During her trip in Europe, Cadence attempts to send emails to the three other Liars but she gets no answer. Another suspicious element.
Summer 17, she insists on going to Beechwood and finally her mother allows her to do that for 4 weeks. She goes there ready to find out what happened 2 summers ago.
Now that was when I got confused. Everyone was behaving mysteriously. Her Granddad, especially after her Grandmother died, was losing it. He was calling Cadence, Mirren (who is the cousin and one of the Liars). One aunt was in island wearing her gown at night, running around. The big house where the Granddad lived was renovated.
To make the long story short, after too much trouble, Cadence realises that the Liars started a fire to burn down the "patriarchy" and all the papers that the Granddad had against the mothers so they could stop fighting over the fortune. Also the Grandfather said the Carrie was not allowed to marry Ed (who is from India as I can recall) because he is "different" from their family. So if she married Ed, they would never come back to the island. And the Liars would be separated.
At the night of the fire, they sent everyone away and they took gas and got into the house.
Basically they split and they arranged to meet outside to celebrate their "win" but what happens is that Cadence makes a mistake, she lights the bookshelves and since paper gets easily burnt, the ceiling was alight. And since someone from the above room was spreading gas as well, everything was on fire.
And then Cadence hears screams.
Johnny, Mirren and Gat were trapped inside the flaming house.
And Cadence feels responsible. That's why she was on the beach, her arms and legs were semi-burnt and then she hit her head.
AND THE MIND-BLOWING PART WAAAAAS:
In summer 17, Johnny, Mirren and Gat were hallucinations. She was seeing them because they were there to help her remember.
whaaaaaaat?
yes yes, I read the last pages 5 times in a row in order to realise what had just happened.
It was shocking and well-constructed and I just couldn't believe it.
Overall, the characters were great. Each one of them was different and they were so complex. And of course they supported this patriarchal concept really well. Some of the irritated me at times, for example Penny (Cadence's mother) because of the way she was trying to "advertise" her daughter to the grandfather in order for her to acquire the fortune. The same thing that practically the other 2 mothers did with their kids. Also, the way that they didn't allow anyone to mention Cadence's Dad when he left them and the Grandmother when she died. As if it was a "shame" and they didn't want any of that to the family. So irritating. But it added to the story!!
I read this book in one sitting. Oh yes, I did. I couldn't put it down.
Before ending this review, I want to say that the scene when Cadence says goodbye to the hallucinations almost brought me to tears. It was so emotional and so intense and so heartbreaking, knowing that they could have all survived and be together but even after what happened they still came back to help her remember...God, that hurt. And Gat's goodbye was even more heartbreaking.. It showed that even when everything else was corrupted and dysfunctional, they managed to love each other so much. *insert tears*
I suggest you read this book!
But don't spoil yourselves!!
Thank you for reading!
~Christiana.
by E. Lockhart
My rating: 4.7 stars
(Disclaimer: It's better to get into this book without having read anything about it. Neither a synopsis nor any comment. Even the slightest piece of information can ruin it for you. The suspense in this book is great and you want to enjoy it! So please read it before proceeding.)
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.
Detailed Review:
So this book follows the story of a family, the Sinclair family, that is bearing the patriarchal stereotype and that revolves around money. The head of the family is the Granddad that is married to Tipper (the grandmother) and they have three daughters: Carrie, Penny and Bess. In this story we have an unreliable narrator, Cadence, who is Penny's daughter and who we soon discover suffers from memory loss and migraines that cause her unbearable pain. So it's quite difficult to decide if we can trust her or not.
The book starts with Cadence telling us about her family, including all the family members, and how every summer they had this family island to go to. In the second chapter (the chapters are really short & the story is split into parts), she mentions an accident and that basically things changed after that but we're not yet in a position of solving this "puzzle".
The Sinclair family has low tolerance of something that can cause a scene and something different. For example we get to see Cadence's dad leaving both her and her mother and even if all Cadence was feeling was pain and rejection, her mother pushed her to show nothing, like this didn't even affect her. I think that was the first time in this book when I was sort-of shocked.
Then Cadence mentions the three houses, the Granddad built for the three daughters that later on plays an important role since the three mothers literally fight with each other for the houses.
And then we get the kids, the "Liars" as they call each other: Cadence, Johnny, Mirren and Gat.
Cadence, Johnny and Mirren are cousins, whereas Gat is the nephew of Carrie's new husband Ed (Carrie is Johnny's mother).
Following this family gets a little confusing, I know, and I had trouble keeping up with them at first and I had to go back and forth in the book so as to understand who is who. Practically all except Ed and Gat, are related to each other.
Practically the Liars are always hanging out together and Cadence is slowly falling in love with Gat.
Now the strange part starts when Cadence mentions summer 15 and how she remembers herself on the beach wearing only her underwear and suffering from hypothermia. She gets in the water and she hits her head as well. And that's where the true suspense story begins.
(Before that though, she remembers that she and Gat kissed and that her Granddad walked in on them; she also remembers that Gat had a girlfriend.)
Cadence doesn't remember what happened in summer 15 at all. There are blank spots in her mind and not only that but also she gets migraines that cause her extreme pain. That sounded quite intriguing to me when I first read it. Why wouldn't she remember what happened close to her accident but she was able to remember anything that happened earlier in summer 15?
In the next summer she wants to go back to Beechwood (the island) but her mother says that she can't so they send her in Europe with her Dad. During her trip in Europe, Cadence attempts to send emails to the three other Liars but she gets no answer. Another suspicious element.
Summer 17, she insists on going to Beechwood and finally her mother allows her to do that for 4 weeks. She goes there ready to find out what happened 2 summers ago.
Now that was when I got confused. Everyone was behaving mysteriously. Her Granddad, especially after her Grandmother died, was losing it. He was calling Cadence, Mirren (who is the cousin and one of the Liars). One aunt was in island wearing her gown at night, running around. The big house where the Granddad lived was renovated.
To make the long story short, after too much trouble, Cadence realises that the Liars started a fire to burn down the "patriarchy" and all the papers that the Granddad had against the mothers so they could stop fighting over the fortune. Also the Grandfather said the Carrie was not allowed to marry Ed (who is from India as I can recall) because he is "different" from their family. So if she married Ed, they would never come back to the island. And the Liars would be separated.
At the night of the fire, they sent everyone away and they took gas and got into the house.
Basically they split and they arranged to meet outside to celebrate their "win" but what happens is that Cadence makes a mistake, she lights the bookshelves and since paper gets easily burnt, the ceiling was alight. And since someone from the above room was spreading gas as well, everything was on fire.
And then Cadence hears screams.
Johnny, Mirren and Gat were trapped inside the flaming house.
And Cadence feels responsible. That's why she was on the beach, her arms and legs were semi-burnt and then she hit her head.
AND THE MIND-BLOWING PART WAAAAAS:
In summer 17, Johnny, Mirren and Gat were hallucinations. She was seeing them because they were there to help her remember.
whaaaaaaat?
yes yes, I read the last pages 5 times in a row in order to realise what had just happened.
It was shocking and well-constructed and I just couldn't believe it.
Overall, the characters were great. Each one of them was different and they were so complex. And of course they supported this patriarchal concept really well. Some of the irritated me at times, for example Penny (Cadence's mother) because of the way she was trying to "advertise" her daughter to the grandfather in order for her to acquire the fortune. The same thing that practically the other 2 mothers did with their kids. Also, the way that they didn't allow anyone to mention Cadence's Dad when he left them and the Grandmother when she died. As if it was a "shame" and they didn't want any of that to the family. So irritating. But it added to the story!!
I read this book in one sitting. Oh yes, I did. I couldn't put it down.
Before ending this review, I want to say that the scene when Cadence says goodbye to the hallucinations almost brought me to tears. It was so emotional and so intense and so heartbreaking, knowing that they could have all survived and be together but even after what happened they still came back to help her remember...God, that hurt. And Gat's goodbye was even more heartbreaking.. It showed that even when everything else was corrupted and dysfunctional, they managed to love each other so much. *insert tears*
I suggest you read this book!
But don't spoil yourselves!!
Thank you for reading!
~Christiana.
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