We Were Liars in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Apr 30, 2016 Heather - hturningpages rated it really liked it

This book totally took me by surprise. I guess given the cover I thought this would be a light, fluffy book about rich people (who own islands lol) with rich people problems. It may start off that way, but it's also about the next generation of rich kids that want something else for themselves and how to find freedom and independence from a exhausting, stifling and sometime immoral upbringing. It's about youth and idealism and the mistakes those inevitably bring with them. The main character thr ...more

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Aug 29, 2018 Laura rated it it was ok

Sometimes the prose was chilling and gut-wrenching - Cady thinking about when her dad left, for example. Then sometimes it was weird and not in a good way, it was choppy and disjointed, and I suppose that was Cady’s influence but it was also confusing. I don’t get why the kids were called the liars.

Really easy read! I guess the plot sucked me in well enough to finish quickly but I hated the ending even though it also made sense. The family was mostly too privileged for me to give a shit about, o ...more

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Nov 02, 2014 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: unreliable-narrator, lotsa-buzz, young-adult, angst, childhood-love, beach-cover

This keeps showing up in Best of lists for 2014, so I had to read it and find out for myself.

To my surprise, I read it in just a few hours.

I am not the intended audience for this book.

I'm a 47 year old mom who enjoys reading YA sometimes. Books like The Hunger Games, Daughter of Smoke & Bone, and Harry Potter, have cross over appeal for all ages. This book? Does not.

This is an excellent book if you're young, maybe between maybe 13 to 15 years old, maybe a little older. I think I might have love This keeps showing up in Best of lists for 2014, so I had to read it and find out for myself.

To my surprise, I read it in just a few hours.

I am not the intended audience for this book.

I'm a 47 year old mom who enjoys reading YA sometimes. Books like The Hunger Games, Daughter of Smoke & Bone, and Harry Potter, have cross over appeal for all ages. This book? Does not.

This is an excellent book if you're young, maybe between maybe 13 to 15 years old, maybe a little older. I think I might have loved it at that age. It is full of angst and imagery and melodrama and repetition and short dramatic sentences and none of it worked for me. Also, I saw the twist coming. Instead of gasping, I kind of rolled my eyes at the characters' stupidity and sighed a little. I feel really bad even bashing this a little. It was so earnest. It tried so hard.

Also, the title really bugged me. Early in the book, we get title: "we were Liars" because that was the nickname used for the four cousins each summer ... but we are never told WHY. What made them "Liars"?? This was just more ridiculous, manufactured drama.

The writing is exceptionally florid, in that angsty melodramatic way of subpar teen books, complete with short, choppy sentences and bizarre line breaks for extra drama:

I leaned in and kissed him.
He touched my face. Ran his hand down my neck and along my collarbone. The light from the attic window shone down on us. Our kiss was electric and soft,
and tentative and certain,
terrifying and exactly right.
I felt the love rush from me to Gat and from Gat to me.
We were warm and shivering,
and young and ancient, and alive.
I was thinking, It’s true. We already love each other.
We already do.

and another example of the over-the-top imagery that is used inconsistently throughout to convey ... what? ... how dramatically tortured and fragile our heroine is? The whole bit about hearts spilling out and veins opening and blood dripping was ridiculous:

Every time Gat said these things, so casual and truthful, so oblivious—my veins opened. My wrists split. I bled down my palms. I went light-headed. I’d stagger from the table or collapse in quiet shameful agony, hoping no one in the family would notice.Especially not Mummy.

Gat almost always saw, though. When blood dripped on my bare feet or poured over the book I was reading, he was kind. He wrapped my wrists in soft white gauze and asked me questions about what had happened.

This just isn't the book for me. ...more

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Jul 20, 2014 Lydia Presley rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, young-adult, contemporary, mystery, 2014

I've been putting off reading WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart for a few reasons. The first reason is that I really, really loved THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS. Like.. I adored it. The second reason is that, for some reason, this book made all the bloggers out there go nuts and that really put me off. I figured there was no way that this book could be that good and so, I prolonged what I was sure to be disappointment.

Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on August 4, 20 ...more

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Jan 20, 2015 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, american-fiction, young-adult-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 28, 2014 Rachel rated it really liked it

Wow. Oh wow. I did not expect the ending. I was wondering if this is a YA book because the main characters are all teenagers, but it doesn't matter. The story is good. It's haunting and I know it will stay with me. There's a bit of a mystery and by the end I couldn't put it down. ...more

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