We Were Liars

Whoa. I love this book, and I hate this book. I want to read it again, and I never ever want to read it again. ( )

RGG: Award winning, critically acclaimed, but since I figured out the twist early on, the book didn't live up to the hype to me. A cross between King Lear, Catcher in the Rye, and a John Green novel. The time jumps and italicized pseudo-fairy tales make this a bit of a difficult read. Reading Interest: 14-YA.

Cady’s family is tall and blonde and has its own private island. The aunties and the grandkids and the packs of goldens loll about each summer, tennis serves growing more aggressive, the fudge from nearby Martha’s Vineyard more cloying, the silences deeper. In this, Cady’s seventeenth summer, she rejoins her family after taking a summer off following an accident that no one will talk about. ‘Be normal’ her mother says. Her cousins, her love, - the Liars - no one wants to push her into remembering. But they do want to push her to see the truth about privilege and advantage; to be a little kinder than she has to. ( )

The ending completely surprised me. A quick read that kept me turning pages until I was done.
( )

I enjoyed it. The style of prose is quite lovely. However, I didn’t get the big surprise at the end like most people are saying they got. I figured it out about half way through.

I’m not sure if I figured it out because it’s been done before in a favourite work of mine ... or because I write in a similar genre (which I think makes me recognize certain things an author drops in a plot rather deliberately.)

So ... it was a good read. I found I didn’t have much sympathy for the main character, but perhaps I wasn’t supposed to. The author presents a group of young people who seem quite oblivious to the real world around them. ( )