We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: May 13, 2014
Pages: 240
Source: ARC, ALA

Summary from Goodreads:
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.

Review

The writing in We Were Liars is undeniably beautiful. It’s poetic. And it is the greatest thing about this book. I was pulled into the story largely because of the way it was told. I wanted to keep reading because I wanted more of E. Lockhart’s words as much as I wanted to know what happened to Cady. It was mysterious. It was perplexing. It was enthralling.

The ending left me reeling. I was unprepared for it, and my jaw literally dropped. But although the reaction itself was positive, I thought what actually happened was dumb. I am frustrated for the characters in this story. I wish I could explain myself further but it would be a spoiler-y so I’ll leave it at that.

And that is what I think of when it comes to this book - the writing and the ending. I don’t think of the characters. I find them neither exceptionally memorable nor exceptionally likable. I don’t think of the setting, because despite taking place on a private island, it’s not given a lot of attention. And I don’t think of the romance, if you can call it that. It was a little confusing and sporadic. But please do not mistake my lack of love for these parts of the story to mean dislike. These things did not detract from the experience, they just did not enhance it. This was a strong book in every other way.

There are some important themes in this book - mostly associated with a privileged lifestyle, and the deep-seeded closed-mindedness of an old elitist family. If you like books that are thought-provoking, this one has its moments. 

Do I feel this book is a little overhyped? No and yes. No because I do think the story and the writing make for a worthwhile read. I DO recommend this book to you. But yes because it was not ohmygodthisbookistodiefor good (in my opinion). And given all the talk surrounding it, that's kind of what I expected. So my positive, but somewhat average rating, can probably be attributed to the hype machine.