Book Rating: Five Stars.

Book Blurb

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 New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.

And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Review

I want you to imagine this, it’s the start of the pandemic and you download tiktok. You watch silly dance videos, a bunch of teens making coffee, and who can forget the pasta that includes a large chunk of feta cheese in a bed of tomatoes. This is your standard feed until, thankfully, you land on booktok. You get submerged into watching recommendations after recommendations, and eventually start reading the hundreds of comments to discover more books to add to your “to be read”. One book in particular that constantly makes an appearance is We were liars. So you decide to buy it on a whim. And as if life can’t get more depressing than being stuck in a global pandemic, you end up reading a book that leaves you in tears after you completed it hours ago. This scenario was my reality.

Lockhart’s We Were Liars is a young adult book that is centered around four kids and then eventually four teenagers: Cadence, Gatwick, Johnny, and Mirren. What drew me into this story was not the plot or the characters, but rather the writing style and the emotions I felt pouring off the page. The confusion. The frustration. The sadness. I felt everything the narrator, Cadence, felt. This whole book is told in a foggy way because Cadence is an unreliable narrator, but bit by bit the real story comes to life through her interactions with her family members. The ending is a secret, so I will respect E. Lockhart’s wishes and not spoil this book. What I will reveal is that the ending actually surprised me. I spent the majority of the book trying to predict the ending, and I did guess close, but the shock factor of it all really hit me. And left me crying, of course. So as you can imagine, we were liars is a book I will never reread, but it’s also a book I will never forget and am very glad I got to experience.

Who should read this book?

I would recommend this book to those that are fans of unreliable narrators, young love, and enjoy good plot twists.

Who shouldn’t read this book?

I am aware that there are many mixed reviews about this story, so I will say it’s essential when reading this to remember who the narrator is; her age; and what she is going through. So if you’re not a fan of teenage melodramatics, you can skip this one.