Review | We Were Liars by E Lockhart

We Were Liars by E Lockhart
Published By: Hot Key Books
Published On: May 15, 2014
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 227
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
Rating: ★★★★

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?


I would usually give a short synopsis of the book before I begin my review but I can’t do that for this book without ruining the reading experience for those who have not read it. All I would say is to go into this book completely blind, just as I did, for the full impact.

The most unique thing about this book is the beautiful yet very confusing writing style. I am still very mixed about the writing style of this book. It works very well with the story but the extensive use of metaphors really confused me. I found it very difficult to work out what was real and what was not. Though this plays a very important role in the book, especially in the later parts, I found it especially confusing at the beginning.

It is possibly due to the writing style that I found it very difficult to get into. I really struggled with Part One and Part Two of the book and I am unsure why. It may be to do with my getting used to the writing style or possibly because the action doesn’t really start until Part Three.

The characters in this book were so interesting. For me, the characters made this book. The Sinclair’s are so unlike any family I have read about and though I found most of the very unlikeable, they were so interesting to me. The main character, Cadence, I did not like that much but that is possibly due to her being such an unreliable narrator. I did, however, really like Gat as a character. 

All I knew about this book going into it was that a plot twist was involved, one that would shock you. Well, the ending of this book broke me. I was not expecting it to affect me so much but I was very emotional while reading the last part of the book.

However, I did manage to guess the plot twist. I did not affect my response to the ending but having a good idea of what was to come did mean that it was not the shock it could have been. I almost felt that I had seen a spoiler for the ending, even though it was just my guess.

Overall, I really liked this book but the beginning let me down a little. The writing style took a while to get used to and the mystery was ruined slightly by my guessing. However, I would absolutely recommend this to anyone and I even hope to reread it in the future.