Book Review :: We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars Published by Hot Key Books
on May 13th 2014
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Young Adult
Pages: 227
Goodreads

We are the Liars.
We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury.
We are cracked and broken.
A story of love and romance.
A tale of tragedy.
Which are lies?
Which is truth?
You decide.

Last updated on 6 April 2022

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase with one of these links, I recieve a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full Affiliate Policy.

What is We Were Liars by E. Lockhart about?

We Were Liars is about … I can’t tell you.

It’s really hard to write a review for book that a) every is talking about and b) is so clever and has such an ending that you fear if you say anything about it, you’ll somehow give it all away.

And if you find any other reviews online for We Were Liars then you may find them very similar.

So, rather than try and tell you what the book is about, I thought I’d just share this description from the We Were Liars wiki page (cheating, I know, but guys if you’ve read the book you’ll know it’s hard to write about!):

Cadence Sinclair Eastman, heiress to a fortune her grandfather amassed “doing business I never bothered to understand,” is the narrator. The story begins during her 15th summer when she suffers a head injury on the private island Granddad owns off Cape Cod. Cady vacations on Beechwood every year with her mother, two aunts, and—most importantly—the other liars of the title: cousins Mirren and Johnny, and Gat Patil, the nephew of Aunt Carrie’s longtime boyfriend.

The book unfolds two summers later, with Cadence trying to piece together the memories she lost after the accident while up against crippling headaches, a brain that feels “broken in countless medically diagnosed ways,” and family members who refuse to speak on the subject (or have been cautioned not to). She has no memory of the accident other than what her mother told her. Still, she wants to find out what happened and why the details don’t match up. – We Were Liars Wiki

My thoughts on We Were Liars

This book was great. I feel I can’t say too much without giving crucial parts away, but it was full of great characters and personalities, first loves and heartaches, full of insanely-rich-family drama, and adventures around what sounds like an amazing island. It was well written (and well-read), from the perspective of Cadence, and the only reason I didn’t give it a 5-star rating was because I called what happened long before Cady did (at the end of the Goodreads description it says “Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE”), and I felt like the end chapters were a bit too drawn out. I think I would have preferred a shorter, snappier ending.

If you’re after a story about family, friends, love and adventure, manipulation and lies, complete with a thousand questions about what really happened to Cady the Summer of 15, then grab a copy of this book. Considering it won the Goodreads Choice award last year, you know it’s going to be a good one, right? Right. If you’re interested in the audiobook, I purchased mine at Audible, and it was about 6.5 hours long.