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Book Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

"We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart was given to me by a good friend for a birthday present. I have to say that I have been wanting to read this book for awhile, so I was extremely excited to finally have a copy in my hands. I have to say that I was extremely surprised with how this story ended up. It was not at all like I expected. This is defintiely not the summery tale of fun that I thought it would be. I found this book to be a little depressing in a way. I am not totally sure that is a bad thing.

The structure of the story was a little weird at first. You would have novel-to-verse written book. Parts of the story seemed to be more written like a poem and others are written in novel form. I think this book was written beautifully but it was really hard to connect with the characters. There are these characters that are going through hard times in their lives but I can seem to feel sympathy for them at all. It was more like I was watching them from the inside out. Which in a way I guess I was since I was reading a story but I feel like if I am reading a book, I want to feel as if I am a part of the story.

I feel like this story started out a bit slow but since the writing intrigued me I kept pressing on until I was completely interested in what was going on in the story. The story jumped around between past and present as Cady was trying to figure out what happened the summer she was 15. Something happened that she can't remember. Something caused the head trauma that she has. All Cady remembers is that she was in the ocean alone and then house bleeding on the beach with a head trauma. She doesn't know why she was out there and she doesn't know why she was alone. Cady wasn't allowed to go back to the island the following summer and then summer seventeen she was allowed to return. Summer seventeen is different though. This is the summer that she needs to remember what happened.

Once I figured out what was going on, it didn't take long to put all of the puzzle pieces together. By the end of the story I felt baffled in a way. The story ended up being heartbreaking and depressing to me but it wasn't neccessarily in a bad way. I still think the book was really good and it is probably something I would read again. The story was just completely different than what I was expecting from it, so it was a daunting afterwards. I do think it is a great book to read, I feel like readers could learn a lot by the actions of the characters and their families.

2 comments

  1. I am so glad you liked it! And your review is really good! Mine was just full of mindless blabbering... the ending left me speechless. It was one of my fave reads of this year, beautiful but sad, but so extremely well-written!

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  2. I have to agree. The story was very beautiful but yes it is really sad. I want to read more by Lockhart.

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