Have you ever read a book that you loved and kinda hated at the same time?  That’s where I am with We Were Liars by E Lockhart. I think of it as “Gone Girl for YA.”

Premise

We Were Liars tells the story of the Sinclair family, a wealthy bunch who summer on their own private island off the coast of Massachusetts. Their “smiles are wide, their chins square, their tennis serves aggressive”. But once you strip these beautiful people of their designer accoutrements, you find some ugly faults hidden underneath.

Cady, the protagonist, spends idyllic summers with her cousins, the Liars, swimming, boating, and falling in love. But during the summer when Cady was 15, something awful happened.  And she can’t remember what it is. Nonsensical snippets come back to her, along with painful headaches, but no one will explain because the doctors want her to figure it out on her own.

And, as astute readers might guess from the title, We Were Liars, Cady is an unreliable narrator, meaning we can’t trust everything she tells us.
All this makes for a page turning read.

I’m conflicted about this book because it is so well written, yet there are certain aspects of the story that leave me disturbed and unsatisfied. I also want to review it without spoiling it, because the end is critical. Let me tell you the good stuff first.

What I liked

• Lockhart uses fresh, vivid descriptions for her characters and their emotions. For example, when Cady explains that her father abandoned her family because he couldn’t stand being with the Sinclairs anymore, she says

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…

On first reading, I foolishly took this literally, then realized Lockhart’s skill with description.

• Excellent pacing – Lockhart carefully parcels out clues in short, snappy chapters that kept me engrossed.
• Lockhart has a poetic style, which gives Cady a unique voice.
• Cady jumps around in time as she tells her story, which adds complexity and interest.
• Throughout the novel, Lockhart alludes to Shakespeare’s King Lear; the conflict between the king and his daughters perfectly compliments this story. There’s also a reference to Wuthering Heights.
• The ending totally surprised me.

What I didn’t like

• The ending.

True, I never would have guessed what happened, but I read the last several pages with my face twisted up like I’d eaten a lemon. Shocked and not necessarily happy about it. Perhaps that’s what Lockhart is going for. I don’t read many thrillers, but the few I have (e.g. Gone Girl) have also left me disturbed. I suppose to craft a truly surprising ending, an author has to strive beyond the expected. But I didn’t like where this went.

• Although the characters are interesting, I didn’t feel a strong connection to any of them. The ending didn’t help. The plot drove my reading more so than the characters.

Recommendation

If you like a good thriller, such as Gone Girl, then you’d probably like We Were Liars. Actually, I liked it better than Gone Girl, which has too many ridiculous plot twists in the second half for my taste. This is a well written book, and one that got me thinking. It’s great for conversation.

Just don’t expect a happy feeling when you turn the last page.

Have you read We Were Liars? Please tell me what you think about it!  Can you recommend any other thrillers, especially for YA?

Thanks for stopping by!

Julia