Oh, this book. I'm honestly not sure where to begin with this review because I literally just finished the book and my head is still reeling at the revelations brought to light by the ending.

As soon as I read the synopsis for this book on NetGalley, I knew that I had to read it. It just sounded like the type of book that I would enjoy though I, unfortunately, took forever to get to it.

In the beginning I didn't read any reviews for We Were Liars but as I began digging into the book, I honestly found it a bit lacking. Until about 50% of the way in, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Some parts seemed dragged out and it just seemed a little uneventful and unimpressive. Because of this, I decided to check out a few reviews and see if the book was worth continuing. I was pleasantly surprised by all the positive reviews, most boasting about the ending and how they didn't see it coming.

I'm glad that I decided to continue because what I felt about the book in the first half became completely flipped for the second half. I spent the remainder of the book not wanting to put it down and found myself completely caught up in the confusing, drama-filled, angsty world of the Sinclairs. I wanted, no needed to figure out what happened that night and why everything was the way it was. Why people treated Cadence the way they did and why everyone acted certain ways.

I'm not crazy about the particular style in which We Were Liars is written but, push that aside, and it's an absolutely beautiful book. It completely blew my mind and has left me in a funk that is going to take a bit to bring myself out of.

Rating: 4 Stars.

Holy moly, I can't even think right now. This book broke me. I wasn't expecting that at all. To be honest, for a while throughout reading, it got to be slow in some areas for me and I wasn't sure if I wanted to finish reading it at the moment. I thought about putting it down and picking up another one and trying again some other time. I can't believe I had even considered it. I'm broken. I'm hollow. I'm a mess now.

Cady Sinclair Eastman has spent every summer on her family's privately owned island. Her oldest cousins Johnny, Mirren and Johnny's step-cousin Gat were her closest friends and together, they called themselves the Liars. For the Liars, their time on the island was a place of magic and wonder, their heaven on earth. They loved their time there and looked forward to it every year, even when things were going wrong. But the summer after their grandmother died, everything went wrong. Cady had an accident which left her with severe memory loss and crippling headaches. The summer after her accident, she is sent to Europe with her dad and Cady couldn't understand why after so long, the Liars never called her, never emailed her back. Never took the time to make sure she was okay. But the summer after that, she returns to the island to find them there, waiting for her along with everyone else. And it is that summer that the memories begin to resurface. She begins to remember what happened that fateful summer. The summer that everything went wrong.

E. Lockhart has woven such a delicate, complicated, heart-wrenching, beautiful story. After my bout of stupidity in which I thought about putting the book away, I buckled down and finished. It didn't take me long either. After halfway through the book, Cady's memories start rushing back. Up until that point, she was lost and confused, with migraines keeping her in bed sick most days. She couldn't understand why no one would just tell her what happened, and she begins to get frustrated. But once the memories return, theirs no stopping the emotions from boiling over. It's not very often that I start to cry while reading a book, but once the truth finally came out, once Cady remembered what happened the summer of her accident, the tears came. I applaud E. Lockhart in her ability to make me cry, even though I desperately wanted for her to say "no wait! It's all a horrible joke. This isn't what really happens. Here let me tell you the truth." But that never came and so now I'm left with tears on my face and an ache in my heart and wondering why it took me so long to finally read this book and also why I torture myself by reading stories that break me.

I read this novel and loved it from the very start! For one, it takes place at a beach house. There is also a great sense of mystery and suspense that is built using the character relationships, which I found to be interesting. The writing was fantastic! I went as far to purchase a signed copy because I loved it so much!

My Thoughts:
Typically I'm not a big fan of books that have a lot of hype surrounding them. Most of the time I find myself disappointed because the book just doesn't live up to my expectations. However, in almost every Booktube video that I watch, I see We Were Liars mentioned. Therefore, I decided to cave in to the peer pressure and read it. Personally I thought that the book was overhyped. It was just an okay read for me.

For most of We Were Liars, I was completely bored. I had to focus to keep reading it because it wasn't holding my attention. Typically a book of this size only takes me a couple of hours to read. However, this one took me a couple of days to read because I kept putting it down. I was interested in the big mystery everyone kept talking about, but not interested enough to fly through the book.

Then the big plot twist happened. I was completely blindsided. I remember reading it at three in the morning, and waking my husband up by yelling "What the fuck?!". I won't go into details because I don't want to ruin it for anyone that hasn't read the book, but it might be the most shocking reveal I've ever read in a book. It definitely made up for the rest of the book being boring.

While I didn't like all of We Were Liars, I did find myself enjoying it at the end. I hope E. Lockhart writes more suspenseful/thriller books like this. If you do choose to read this book, I highly recommend you go into it blind (without reading the synopsis, or spoiling it in any way for yourself). I recommend this book to anyone looking for something that is completely mind meddling, and makes you think.

I give We Were Liars: 3.5/5.

A well-written and enjoyable book, I am glad I requested this title and will be more than happy to pass the title along to my fellow library purchasers.

Starting off with the slightly different one, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart is actually a young adult novel told from the perspective of Cadence Sinclair, who grew up spending her summers on a private island owned by her grandparents. Then, in her fifteenth summer on the island, an accident happens. Cadence can’t remember much of that summer. Nobody will tell her what happened, and when she finally returns to the island, everything is different.

We Were Liars is the story of Cadence returning to the island, and unraveling both the past and present. It’s confusing at times, but poetic and honest. There’s definitely an element of suspense although I wasn’t totally shocked by how things turned out, it all fits together in the end. The fact that Cadence’s family is so wealthy isn’t totally relatable (at least to me) and it sometimes makes Cadence not very sympathetic as a character, because of how she treats others. That said, it makes for a good setting and at times, I was reminded of Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty in the way that the island itself was a character.

If you enjoy poetic writing with a hint of mystery I definitely recommend picking up We Were Liars.

I liked this book and thought it was very well written, but unfortunately, it got spoiled for me before I was able to read it and I think that affected my overall enjoyment of the story. I look forward to reading other books by the author in the future, though.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

3.5 stars

“No one is a criminal.
No one is an addict.
No one is a failure.”

This story went it came out was marketed as the biggest twist in YA literature of 2014. I remember everyone was losing their shit over it. I was, too. I squealed my heart when I was approved on Netgalley to read this book. Me? A small blogger with not a very big fan base who never reviews the books she requests. Case in point I read We Were Liars from September 2014 to August 2015. That’s a long time to read a book (more on that soon). It’s also January 2017!!! I’m a horrible reviewer. I give really in depth reviews, but I hardly review books on time. That’s just the way I am. I can’t help it and I say I’m going to change it, but I read books so quickly and after giving myself so much time to process this novel, I can give a completely unbiased review. Are all book reviews bias if they are written right after being read? Mine are. They used to be heavily biased. They are not anymore. I know a lot of readers who read a book and love it so much, but days, weeks, or months later they look back and say, MEH, it wasn’t as good as I wrote. Not all books are like this; in fact, a lot of the books I give 5 stars to will always be 5 star books. I am glad I waited so long upon reading this book to write a review. I was thrown into the hype parade. Did I like We Were Liars? Sure. Did I think it was too predictable and contrived? YEP. Did I like the writing? Yes.


“Suffer. You could say it means endure, but that’s not exactly right.”

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t told you anything about what this book is about and I won’t. Not because I’m trying to preserve the illusion of this great mystery, but because I honestly think if you want to read this novel then you won’t want to read a review that goes into the plot. You’ll want the surprise like I did.


This book starts out in a very confusing fashion and then it slowly begins to show how unreliable the narrator and the flowery prose is. Seriously, the prose is so set on being mysterious and evasive that at times it makes no sense with the illusions, metaphors, and imagery thrown about for the sake of creating an unreliable character. I LOVE unreliable narrators; they are my bread and butter. Books with unreliable narrators are going to get brownie points. I like We Were Liars a lot more because of the unreliable narrator, but it’s one of the only BIG factors that favor this novel. The see-saw of badassery is collapsing on the negatives this novel has to offer.
The writing is beautiful and lyrical. Once you get past the flowery crap, it really shines through in certain scenes, but this isn’t the best writing I’ve read. Lockhart is a strong writer and that’s obvious from her prose construction. One of the strongest things about this novel is the incorporation of fairy tales that mirror King Lear. I hadn’t read King Lear until a year after reading We Were Liars and immediately after reading King Lear, I thought to myself, “We Were Liars has a lot of similar concepts and themes.” That’s because it’s a King Lear retelling. Bravo, Lockhart. It was executed brilliantly. I loved that portion of the novel the most. It was the best part to read and I think that everyone should read King Lear before this or after because you’ll have a deeper appreciation for We Were Liars.


Whimsical Writing Scale: 4.25

“Life feels beautiful that day.
The four of us Liars, we have always been.
We always will be.”

The main heroine, Cady, is a very unreliable narrator. It’s obvious from the very beginning of the story that she isn’t able to dissociate fictional metaphors that exaggerate events from real life events. She’s really interesting, but I didn’t particularly like her. I couldn’t form an attachment to her and I think that’s because she felt disconnected from the real world. It’s as if she’s floating on another planet away from reality and she’s looking down into reality. I really like that aspect, but it also makes it hard to connect and empathize with this heroine.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 3.25

“For a moment, the two of us were alone on the planet, with all the vastness of the sky and the future and the past spreading out around us.”

The relationship depicted in this novel is… ridiculous. Her love interest, Gat, is a complete douchecanoe. I have absolutely no clue why she is pawing after him. He doesn’t have any real interest in him and it seems like they are only having a relationship because it’s forbidden due to his foreign background and not being a real Sinclair. I just didn’t buy it. I wasn’t swooning. I was gagging.


Swoon Worthy Scale: 2

The Villain- Let’s talk about the twist. This book was so heavily endorsed as having a big shocker. PLEASE, I predicted the twist in the first ten chapters. I almost quit reading this book because it was boring, but I wanted and NEEDED to know the twist. It was the only reason I kept reading this book. The suspense was there, but it was written to be suspenseful. I was forcing myself to keep flipping pages only to feel uninspired and completely let down. How is a twist supposed to inspire me? For starters, twists make you think. They enhance your ability to analyze situations, characters, and it makes you appreciate a good twist. Gillian Flynn for instance, has the best freaking twists. Sharp Objects- I was disturbed and shocked. Dark Places- one of the best incorporations of information briefly touched upon to make the whole story come around full circle. Gone Girl- my favorite suspense novel of all time because of how unreliable the narrators are. These are great twists because they force you to look from different angles. (Can you tell I watch a lot of the Investigative Discovery Network and SVU?) Again, while the plot twist was predictable, Lockhart moved me to tears. It was beautifully done. Lockhart is a strong writer, but she is not a suspense writer and when you stop thinking about the twists and just about the story alone there is a lot to be gained from it.


Plot Twist Scale: 3

The Sinclairs are a very enigmatic family. I was easily drawn into their web of power. It’s an interesting power struggle between each generation for approval. I really enjoyed the relationship between the Liars. It was incredibly well written and definitely felt like a real familial dynamic.


Character Scale: 4

Should you read this novel? I say yes. I think there’s a lot to be gained from this novel. It has good themes and if you are interested in reading more unreliable narrators then I recommend this. If you are a fan of unreliable narrators, you may enjoy this novel. There were parts I really enjoyed and parts I really didn’t. I do recommend this novel for the way the ending was written. It was so beautiful. If you have read this story then click on the spoiler below, but if you haven’t then this quote may ruin things for you. I would normally leave a quote like this out of my review, but I absolutely adore the passage.

“The eldest boy was strong and fast, capable, and handsome. Though it’s true, he was exceptionally short.
The next boy was studious and open-hearted. Though, it’s true he was an outsider.
And the girl was witty, generous, and ethical. Though it’s true, she felt powerless.
The witch, she was none of these things, for her parents had angered the fairies. No gifts were ever bestowed upon her.”

Plotastic Scale: 4

Cover Thoughts: I don’t really like the cover. If this book wasn’t so hyped up I wouldn’t have picked it up based on the cover. It’s just not something I really care for.

Thank you, Netgalley and Delacorte Press, for allowing me to read this novel for free in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much for approving me. Unfortunately I ended up not being able to finish this book.