Review for We Were Liars
An amazing book that I would recommend to all to try out!
Library #3 finally had this book in their collection (miracle miracle!) and I decided to take it with me. I heard so much praise and so much hype for this book that I was super curious if it was truly such a great book. After a bumpy start, but a great middle and fantastic ending, I can say that it is indeed a great, no fantastic book. I will write a small review, to express my thoughts, but I won’t delve deep in the book due to the high amount of spoilers and I feel that this book is best enjoyed when you don’t know anything about it or at least not a lot.
So let me start with that I had plans to drop this book, yes, I confess, and people who saw my status updates on GR know I struggled through the first part of the book. The first 30/40 pages are quite annoying, you need to get used to the writing style (which is quite unique, and at times headache-inducing), but also to the characters. I have considered just dropping it, I considered just going to bring it back when I went to the library again, but for some reason I couldn’t drop the book, I tried again and again, and around page 40+ I got dragged into the book, and I wasn’t released until I finished it. After certain events happened the book got really exciting and I just loved finding out about all the things that happened.
Our main character is Cadence, for most of the time we see her during her vacation on the island, but we also have parts of her at home or travelling to Europe. I didn’t always like her, her attitude wasn’t always great, but in general I really liked her.
Then we have Gat, Johnny, Mirren, our other 3 Liars. I think out of those 3, my favourite would be Mirren. She was really fun and bubbly and I liked her. Gat, I just found him a bit to pretentious and a bit of a dick. How he treated girls was also something I didn’t like. Again, no spoilers, just read the book and I am sure you will find out why I think this.
I am still not sure if I liked the grandpa. At times he was a kind, old grandpa, who truly cared about his family, but quite a lot of times it felt like he was abusing his power as the patriarch of the family. His olden ways of thinking also don’t help. The way he treated those that didn’t fit in the family, those of colour, it was just something that had me shaking my head.
I loved the descriptions of all the things happening in this book. Often I could just visualize myself on the beach, enjoying grand and luxurious meals, swimming, playing and having a summer of my life. Though at times the descriptions were a bit too much, at times I just wanted the story to move on and get to the truth.
As that is what quite a big part of the book is about, not about 4 teenagers having a grand old summer (though that is also a part), but about what happened to Cadence. I loved how the author did those parts, how we jumped to memories, how we jumped between the years (luckily this is all done pretty clear, so you won’t be too confused).
I also was fascinated by the way the Sinclair family worked, and how they treated each other.
The ending, I will just say that was the most amazing part of the entire book. I can say that I never expected that. Sure, finding it out makes me go back to the book and I can just see the hints, but before that? No.
As the story progresses we also find out why the book is called: We were Liars.
So, that is it for my review, I think I kept it mostly a surface review and I didn’t go deeper in things.
I would highly recommend this book to everyone. The start might be a bit slow, it might make you want to drop the book, but just try to continue. It is well worth it!
I will be getting this book for my own collection, because I just need this book for my own. So I can re-read it whenever I want.