Friday 13 June 2014

We Were Liars Book Review


We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Genre: Y/A Contemporary, mystery 


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.



“We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.”

Okay. This book. Let me start of by saying that I am one of those people who rarely gives a book less than 4/5 cups of tea. This is because I generally only read books that I KNOW I am going to enjoy. Even before I received an ARC of We Were Liars, I decided that I would most likely read it one day. Not anytime soon, but I would most definitely be interested in the future. However when I won the book I decided I would read it sooner because, well, I won it and that was exciting! Now onto the review...

I did enjoy this book, there is no doubt about that. I did however have a few issues. I couldn't really connect to any of the characters. I'm not sure if that's because it was about a bunch of really rich kids living it up on their own little piece of paradise and I just couldn't relate? Or for some other mysterious reason...but I haven't experienced this many times before so i don't really know. 

One thing I didn't really understand was why the group of four friends called themselves 'The Liars'. I guess I can see how it ties in with the ending of the book however I didn't see any relevance to the majority of the storyline. This could just be me, and I may have missed the entire point. Feel free to tell me! 

“Always do what you're afraid to do.”

One of the things I did enjoy about this book was the writing style, it was so beautiful. The way E. Lockhart used metaphors made me think 'is this really happening or not?'. I think the writing style really complemented the themes and tone of the story. It was mysterious and intriguing and made me want to keep on reading until i finished the book! 

“Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,
then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth.
It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.”

I would say lets talking about the ending of the book but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read the book yet. All i'll say is I did not see the end coming. I know a lot of people figured out what was happening early on, but I was not one of those people. This is what kept me reading and I think if I had known the ending, it would have ruined it for me. 

I honestly still don't know how I feel about this book. That is why i'm only giving it 3/5 cups of tea. To be honest, the ending is what brought the rating down for me, I would have most likely given the book 4 stars if not for the ending. I would still recommend this book because I think a lot of people would enjoy it. Perhaps it just wasn't the right book for me. 

“The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.”

*I received an ARC of this book for free through Goodreads First Reads* 


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