Review for We Were Liars by E. Lockhart!
Quick View Review:
Characters: **** (4.5/5)
Plot: ***** (5/5)
Writing Quality: ** (2.5/5)
Amazon Rating: **** (4/5)
IT WASN’T THE QUALITY OF THE WRITING THAT MADE US GIVE THIS CATEGORY 2.5/5 STARS; READ ON TO FIND OUT WHY WE DID!
Full Review:
Cadence Sinclair Easton lives with the pressure of being from a powerful and wealthy family, the head of which is a patriarch who owns a luxurious island off the coast of Massachusetts. Every summer, the entire family gathers on the various houses on the island. Over the years, Cadence (Cady) has grown extremely close to her two cousins, Johnny and Mirren, and their friend, Gat. Together, these four form the Liars, and during the summer, they are simply inseparable.
However, during summer fifteen (their fifteenth summer on the island), Cady suffers from a mysterious accident, the details of which she doesn’t know and no one will tell her about. She spends the next two years (the course of the book) struggling with major migraines, medication, and trying to remember exactly what transpired during those few months.
So… what really happened that summer? And how did it really affect Cady and the rest of her pristine perfect family?
We really loved the idea of this book. We thought it was interesting and unique, something that we haven’t ever seen before. I mean, the whole missing memory thing sort of reminded me of the Maze Runner, but the stories and situations were so extremely different that you can’t really compare We Were Liars to that supernatural series. Also, Cady’s reason for memory loss was a lot more realistic and different than Thomas and the Gladers’ reasons.
We also thought that the aunts and parents of the Sinclair family were realistic considering their situation. We kind of hated them all at the beginning, but we grew to understand them as the book went on (especially when we found out the “truth” ;)).
We absolutely LOVED the Liars. We could totally picture our friends and us being just like them, discussing the same things. They were all so relatable and realistic, and we loved seeing how Cady acted a little bit different when she was around them. Of course, we desperately wanted Cady to remember what had happened that summer and why they were all so reluctant to talk about it, but other than getting a little impatient with Cady’s best friends, we were never mad at them or disliked them.
E. Lockhart’s writing was fabulous. Detailed and descriptive, it fit perfectly with the story. We felt like she did an incredible job capturing Cady's emotions and truly showing us what Cady was thinking. Lockhart's writing definitely pulled us in - we were engrossed in this book, could imagine it taking place; meaning that we had feelings about what happened and had opinions about events.
The only thing that we really disliked about this book (this is the reason for the 2.5 stars) was that it was so so confusing. We never really knew whether Cady was talking about summer fifteen or summer seventeen, and we feel like simply naming the chapters “Summer 15” or “Summer 17” could have added so much clarification and made this book so much better. Also, we just didn’t get the ending. We weren't sure whether it was something like what happened in Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone (review coming!) or if something supernatural was going on. It just didn’t make a lot of sense, and we feel like maybe an epilogue or an extra chapter could have fixed and solved our confusion. After we finished, we felt like although we more or less understood what happened during summer fifteen, we were really confused about summer seventeen, and really didn’t understand what went on/what happened/what Cady went through.
Overall, the idea behind this book, the characters, and the writing was amazing, but we felt like it could have been greatly improved if the author had just cleared up some of the confusion. We definitely recommend this book for anyone 14+.
Happy reading!
XOXO,
Jordan
