Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

*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.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

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

Review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

*There will be "spoilers" if you really don't want to know anything about the plot of the story so beware if you haven't read it and you'd like to know nothing!

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Here is the Goodreads summary: 

This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original and memorable writers working today.

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú — the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim - until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.

With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Díaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere - and to risk it all - in the name of love.

A true literary triumph, this novel confirms Junot Díaz as one of the best and most exciting writers of our time.

I read this book for The Writers of Color Book Club Goodreads group as a way to start diversifying my reading experiences. This was such a great book to start off with because the layout was so engaging of me. We got an intimate look into the lives of Oscar, his sister, his mother, his grandfather, and a bit of Yunior, the narrator and friend of the family. Being able to look into the past of the characters and get such in depth background is what I enjoy most when it comes to novels, especially family-centric ones. I also think it was necessary in this book because of the fukú, or curse, that supposedly surrounded the family and was such a generational concept. 

The use of footnotes to give some background and history to the story was fantastic. It added such depth to what was going on because Diaz put these fictional characters into real-life history and it made it so much more engaging and relatable, in a sense. Although I never experienced the Dominican Republic or it's past, I had a sense of time and place to put these characters in, and it made them so, so real. Also, using the spanish/dominican spanish/slang was something I was very worried about, but it was something else that really added to the story, for me. I was able to get the general idea of a lot of what was said and it immersed me into their world and their culture. 

For me, this book wasn't necessarily about the plot so much as the characters and their development. I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator and how he spoke to us about the story, but I wasn't super into finding out who it could be. I was more into his way of telling the readers about this family and how he pulled us in by saying things like "our girl" but also reminding us that we were not a part of this family or culture by using the slang so freely and loosely in his stories. This also wasn't so much about Oscar, for me at least, as it was about his family, and how when Oscar died, they all had played some part in his downfall. 

There was so much in this book that I know I missed or didn't understand but it was so wonderfully written with such memorable, beautifully flawed, tragic characters and such a mesmerizing, tragic setting that I couldn't help but fall in love with it. I could go on and on and probably keep realizing things and analyzing the heck out of other things, but I will end the review here with a whopping 5 out of 5 on goodreads and a huge recommendation to read this book.

Review: The Unexpected Waltz by Kim Wright

I will probably do a written review for every book I read, mainly for my personal reading archives, and perhaps also, to help fellow readers out and to create discussions about the books.

My first review is on The Unexpected Waltz*. I got this as an ARC from the bookstore I work at and it came out June 3. Here's the goodreads synopsis:

From the author of the critically acclaimed debut Love in Mid Air comes this moving novel about a middle-aged widow who finds her feet by embracing a new hobby: ballroom dancing.

Kelly Wilder becomes recently widowed from a much older wealthy man with whom she spent her married life doing charity work, building a lovely home, and, as she says, “pretending to be a whole lot more conservative and stupid and nicer than I really am.”

Now, with too much time and money on her hands, Kelly has absolutely no idea what happens next. So on a whim she signs up for a ballroom dancing class, and slowly, step by high-heeled step, begins to rebuild her life with the help of friends old and new: Nik, a young Russian dance teacher who sees the artistic potential she left behind; Carolina, a woman in hospice, anxious to experience a whole lifetime in a few months; and Elyse, Kelly’s girlhood best friend who knows all of her past secrets—including the truth about the man who long ago broke Kelly’s heart.

In the vein of Jennifer Weiner's novels, Unexpected Waltz is a deeply felt story about moving on after loss and finding a new walk—or dance—of life through the power of second chances.



Overall, I liked this book. I thoroughly enjoyed the ballroom dance aspect of it and the characters that were brought in through that part of the story. All of the characters in the story were likable and it was a light read that didn't hold emotionally intense or extremely negative topics. If you aren't looking for too much from a book other than a fun story and an array of different characters, then this is great. 

There was a lot I didn't personally enjoy, however. I love adult fiction, especially books where we get a lot of character development. Being able to see how characters became the way they are through their past and then seeing them grow throughout the story is one of my favorite tools in fiction and I thought this book would be ideal for that. Perhaps it was supposed to be, but it really felt short in that aspect. Everything was very surface level. Death, hospice, cheating, affairs; normally these things are emotional. I didn't feel much emotion at all when these topics came up because I felt they weren't dug into deeply and I didn't feel connection to the characters. There were different people and settings the main character, Kelly, interacted with and the flow seemed very choppy. Parts of the book I enjoyed more than others and it was a very nice ending. But a lot of the time I went, "Eh." 

It was disappointing for me because it sounded like it could have been so much more than it was. But if you are looking for a light, quick read, then this definitely works. It wasn't awful by any means and in general I liked it, hence why I gave it 3 out of 5 goodreads. 

*The link to the book is an affiliate link with indiebound.com.