We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

**Thank you Random House for the eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review! 

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Thoughts:

Wow. Just wow.

I'm going to be honest here....the first half of the book I was kind of back and forth on how I felt about this book. The writing is definitely unique and I wasn't sure if it was for me but my curiosity about Cadence's accident kept me reading. I had to know what happened to her during summer fifteen. So I kept reading. I was thinking I would give this a solid 3.5 because I was enjoying it, it's a quick read, and the story was interesting enough, THEN....THEN the last 30%....the heart-wrenching last 30% of this book made me want to hold it so close and squeeze it so tight and never let go.

This is not something that happens to me often. Usually halfway through a book I know where I stand. The turn of events though and the truth coming out....it was all so unexpected and so tragic. I don't think a book has made me cry like this one did in a long while. I was sobbing like a baby...it was an ugly, ugly cry. 

Liked I stated above, the writing was extremely unique. The way the story is told I felt like I was in a different time, until someone brought up iPads or Angry Birds then I realized I wasn't. Sometimes the writing was almost poetic. I ended up really loving it even though at first I found it to be a little odd. The metaphors worked really well when describing things instead of taking away from the situation or being overdone like I have felt in some books. I also really enjoyed the way there were small fairy tale stories woven in to give little clues about Cadence's life and what happened to her and the Liars. 

The Liars were all very fascinating. Cadence had such a great friendship with them all and you could really see and feel the love they all had for each other. While the book didn't allow me to see a lot of character development for Johnny, Mirren, or Gat, it did for Cadence which really made me attached to her, and this was her story completely. ALL her highs and lows really hit me.

Cadence and Gat had a beautiful summer romance going on but I loved how this didn't overshadow the story or their friendship, it only strengthened everything. I love how different worlds were brought together and even the feeling of them being on the island felt like a different world to them outside of their lives during the year. 

I would highly recommend getting a box of tissues, something to hug, and maybe some chocolate before reading this book. It is definitely needed. Thank you E Lockhart for this touching story that ended up having such an emotional impact on me. 

Rating:

♥♥♥♥ 1/2