We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Hello everyone! Here is my book review of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. I remember this book being pretty popular, but I never got the chance to read it until now. Hope you enjoy!
We Were Liars is set on Beechwood Island, the Massachusetts coastal island that the Sinclairs own. The family tree is quite complicated with all of the properties that they own and the people involved, so here's a picture that was given at the beginning of the book. This illustration personally helped me a lot!
The book follows Cady (Cadence), retelling the summer when she was 15. This was the summer right before she got into an accident which left her with frequent migraines and almost no memories of that time. One of the only things she remembers was her waking up half dressed on the beach near the end of that summer, with no one around. As she struggles to recollect her memories, she spends time with the Liars, a group consisting of her, Mirren, Johnny, and Gat. Turmoil and drama arises between Cady's mom and her aunts, the three daughters of Harris Sinclair. The sisters constantly fight over the inheritance of Beechwood Island and its properties, trying to drag their kids into helping their side. The Liars eventually become fed up, deciding to rebel and take a drastic measure. But, the drastic measure doesn't exactly turn out as they expect, leaving them in a completely different situation.
I personally enjoyed the book a lot. I specifically liked how the many characters in the family each added to the overall plot. While some family members were obviously more developed than others, they all seemed to stand out and have their own unique characteristics. I also enjoyed the ending, because it was a nice plot twist from what I expected would have happened (more on the ending below though!) The romance between Cady and Gat was also something I quite enjoyed, because it wasn't over the top and cheesy, but rather it added nicely to the overall book.
Some things I did not like as much about We Were Liars was that when I first finished the book I was confused at the ending. I didn't fully understand what was going on, and I actually had to search up a summary of the book to figure out the how all of the parts worked together to form the ending. However, once things made a lot more sense, I thought the ending was really clever and something unexpected. I also recall being a bit confused of all of the different family members at first, and I had to look at the family tree that was provided at the beginning of the book a couple of times while reading. Other than those minor aspects, I would definitely recommend this book as your next read!
Thanks for reading!
-Maddie
I really like your post. In addition, I like how you summarize the book with out giving too much away, and how you talk about how the family played a big role. Honestly, I usually do not pay as much attention to diagrams at the start of books, but I think knowing that the diagram was really helpful, could be quite useful if I deicide to tread the book so that I know not to skip over it. Overall, it was a really nice post.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a nice job describing this book. You summarized the plot in a way that makes me want to read the book and you didn't give anything away. I like how you said that all the characters were unique. Unique characters always make a book much more entertaining. Although you said the ending was confusing, I still want to check it out for the plot twist!
ReplyDeleteLove your post! I really like how you clearly lay out the good parts and not so good part of the story, easy and simple. Also great summary, sounds like an interesting book, dramatic, mysterious and with a bit of romance. I definitely recognize the title and book cover from middle school, but I haven't had the chance to read it. Might have to check it out! (:
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