We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Series: No
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: May 13th 2014
Source: Netgalley

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 going to be one of those books that I’m going to have trouble reviewing. Not because I hated it, in fact, it was quite the opposite - but because I’m terrified of writing the wrong thing and giving too much away. This is one of those books that I definitely recommend going into knowing as little as possible, because that definitely makes the story better.

I received a digital review copy of We Were Liars from Netgalley and I was super excited to read it. And then around it release date everyone seemed to be reading it and raving about it, which slightly lessened my interest for this book. I waited until a lot of the hype surrounding it died down before I picked it up. Waiting also helped because I forgot everything I’d read about the book and I’d forgotten the synopsis – which I didn’t look at before I started reading it. And I’m glad I didn’t.

We Were Liars is a beautifully written novel that follows 4 friends who spend summer after summer on a beautiful private island. There was an accident one summer and Cadence lost her memory. Her friends and family spend the summer tip-toeing around her and wondering whether she’ll ever remember what happened.

I’m going to be completely honest here; I almost put this book down. To start with, it wasn’t really gripping my attention that much and it was just kind of bland. But boy am I glad I stuck it out. It’s one of those books that you need the back story before getting to the big reveal. So even though there were parts of the back story I found boring, overall, I did enjoy hearing about Cadence, Gat Johnny and Mirren’s previous summers on the island. I also really loved hearing the family history behind the Sinclair family and all of their family drama definitely added a lot to the story.

The build up to the main reveal at the end was fantastic and that twist left me in tears. I never saw it coming; it was heart-breaking and also such an amazing twist. I just want to applaud E. Lockhart for that ending because it was superb. It broke my heart and made me ugly sob, but it was fantastic. 

Overall, despite the slightly boring parts, I loved We Were Liars. I adored all four of the Liars and I loved uncovering what happened the summer of Cadence’s accident. We Were Liars is one of those books that I’m just going to recommend to everyone now because it’s fantastic.