*Spoilers galore up ahead. I can honestly say that if you haven't read the book and you plan to, don't read any further. It will ruin it for you if it's spoiled, even a little, which I can say from experience.
Here is the Goodreads synopsis:
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.
So if you saw the top of this post, you'll know that I was spoiled. It wasn't on purpose but the Booksplosion book club I was in where we were reading this had different topic boards for each section of chapters, in order to read something and not be spoiled. Well on one of the boards that was for the 2-3 chapters, people were speculating. And a couple people speculated that "Hey, maybe the three cousins are ghosts?" and I knew as soon as they said that, that it was the case. I hadn't even thought about that possibility but when I just considered a little, I had completely figured it out.
It did ruin it for me. But I can say that I still enjoyed the book and I think there was more to it then just a big twist. If I had gone into this not knowing there was a twist whatsoever, I may have given this a 5 out of 5. But I was reading this waiting for something to happen. I wasn't able to enjoy the little things and other aspects of the book because I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on and so I feel like I missed a lot.
But looking at the story itself, I have been thinking about it a lot since I've finished and I feel like I've grown to appreciate it more. I didn't get attached to the characters to the point that I was super sad and upset when they died (I was much more upset about the dogs, to be honest). But. That didn't take away from the story for me. I think it was on purpose we were ambivalent or worse towards the characters because they grew up in a family where happy, nice feelings weren't a true or real thing. We weren't supposed to feel good things reading this book because the characters didn't feel good things ever.
There were little things that I could analyze and say I wish were better but I think that takes away from the point of the story. This wasn't about character development, or a crazy, mind-blowing twist. This was about truth. Being truthful to yourself about who you are, what you want to change, and what you can never change. At least that's the deeper meaning I got from it.
I gave this a 4 out of 5 and my biggest criticism is the length of the story. It was so short that I do wish I had a little bit more time with the characters. And especially a little bit more time with the three cousins when they were alive. I just felt a little like I was missing something and I wasn't fully content. But overall, I liked this book a lot. If it makes me think about it for days and days, it did it's job, in my opinion.
*Book link is affiliate link with indiebound.org
It did ruin it for me. But I can say that I still enjoyed the book and I think there was more to it then just a big twist. If I had gone into this not knowing there was a twist whatsoever, I may have given this a 5 out of 5. But I was reading this waiting for something to happen. I wasn't able to enjoy the little things and other aspects of the book because I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on and so I feel like I missed a lot.
But looking at the story itself, I have been thinking about it a lot since I've finished and I feel like I've grown to appreciate it more. I didn't get attached to the characters to the point that I was super sad and upset when they died (I was much more upset about the dogs, to be honest). But. That didn't take away from the story for me. I think it was on purpose we were ambivalent or worse towards the characters because they grew up in a family where happy, nice feelings weren't a true or real thing. We weren't supposed to feel good things reading this book because the characters didn't feel good things ever.
There were little things that I could analyze and say I wish were better but I think that takes away from the point of the story. This wasn't about character development, or a crazy, mind-blowing twist. This was about truth. Being truthful to yourself about who you are, what you want to change, and what you can never change. At least that's the deeper meaning I got from it.
I gave this a 4 out of 5 and my biggest criticism is the length of the story. It was so short that I do wish I had a little bit more time with the characters. And especially a little bit more time with the three cousins when they were alive. I just felt a little like I was missing something and I wasn't fully content. But overall, I liked this book a lot. If it makes me think about it for days and days, it did it's job, in my opinion.
*Book link is affiliate link with indiebound.org
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