Review #2 - We Were Liars

Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

I don't really know where to begin with this story. I found it this morning whilst browsing through Waterstones, and I decided to buy it, along with 'Thirteen Reasons Why.' I read it in just under two hours, I just couldn't put it down.

A brief synopsis; (Via Goodreads)

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. 

I feel compelled to lie to you all about the ending, about this book. It's happy. It's not happy. It's a romance. It's a tragedy. It is all of those things and not.

Like John Green, I agree, this book is utterly unforgettable.

I remember, I absolutely hated first person books, because I thought they were dreary, because my English teachers told me they were trash, because I felt many writers could not encompass the true feelings of a 16 year old girl when they are 35 year old men. I was wrong. I was lied to. I was wrong again.

'We Were Liars' is passionately written, with a broken narrative structure that so fluently represents the feelings and thought process of the main character, Cadence.

The story follows Cadence, as she spends summer after summer on the island her grandfather owns with her three best friends, known eternally as the Liars. As she witnesses her life fall apart. As she wakes up, cold, naked and alone in the shores of the dock with a traumatic head injury. As she spends the next two years asking over and over again what happened, only to forget the next day. As she revisits the island after what seems like an eternity away from it, in the hopes to piece together what happened that night in her 15th summer. As she realises that she is what she has been all along: A Liar.

This book is a mystery. This book has a heart splintering twist, one that is so unexpected you don't know how it could have stayed hidden, how you could have skipped all the hints. I finished it less than an hour ago, and already I wish to start re-reading it, despite having another gazillion things I need to do.

I think, to sum up this book, I can say only what is written on the back:

We are liars
We are broken and privileged
We are cracked and broken
A tale of love and romance
A tale of tragedy
Which are lies?
Which is truth?
You decide.

Star Rating: 5/5