REVIEW: We Were Liars by E Lockhart

We Were Liars by E Lockhart
RATING: 4 Stars
PUBLISHER: Delacorte Press
GENRE: YA Contemporary

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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.

MY THOUGHTS:
I can't tell you much about this book because if I do, it will ruin it for you. All I can say is that it is an emotional ride that will be forever in your heart. Put simply, it follows the Sinclair family who meet every summer on an island. It is a story of love, heartbreak and lies.

At the beginning, I found the writing style a bit hard to understand with it flitting between incidents with huge time gaps withing paragraphs. This put me off at the start but after a while, I got used to this twist and began to appreciate it. The writing style was really poetic and the metaphors really added to the style. When she describes that her Dad, whilst leaving, "took out a gun and shot me in the chest", I was like WHAT?!? WHO DOES THAT? Then, these references occurred a few times more and I realised; they're metaphors.

Despite this, I thought the story was fantastic! The premise was unique and really interesting and the fact that they meet every summer and only shows them at that time, allows you to really have a sense of the characters growing. The emotional execution in the book was very well done. I felt all the emotions and really connected with the characters and began to love/hate them.

The ending - WOW! Trying not to spoil it, I will only say that it was unexpected, thoughtful and emotional. Enough said.

However, the one downfall to this book was its title. I understand it is a very effective title on its own and will draw people in. Despite this, the title doesn't fit the book. The only reference it has within the book is minuscule and insignificant. I think this title just doesn't suit or portray the book sufficiently.