Can I tell you how much I loved E. Lockhart when I was younger? I remember eagerly anticipating her next release. I checked out every book of hers that my library had, and then inter-library loaned the rest. As I got older and she released more books, they were always on my wishlists. I just moved, but somewhere in a box, you’ll find a whole lot of hardcovers of her books.
What I’m getting at is that Lockhart was a big part of my childhood, and when I heard that she’d released a new book, I had to read it as an adult to see if the magic was still there.
It was.
Now, We Were Liars is a different sort of story than her Ruby Oliver or Frankie Landau-Banks books. Whereas those were light young adult books, WWL is a mystery that messes with your head. Cadence Sinclair is a deeply troubled young woman. She’s got some obvious problems going into the story (unexplained illness, amnesia), and as you get further into the book, her various issues become more pronounced.
This book is still young adult, I guess, but it’s totally different from anything of Lockhart’s that I’d previously read. It seems that people either liked that or hated it. Scrolling through my friends’ reviews, I see lots of five-star and lots of one-star ratings. There’s not a whole lot in between. And I can understand that. I think that you have to be in the right mood for this book, and, in general, you need to like this kind of story.
Personally, I loved it. I cried. Like, tears streaming down my face, unable-to-think-straight-because-of-what-just-happened crying. I’m not going to tell you about the plot. This is the kind of book that’s better to go into blind. Had I known anything about the plot, I can’t imagine that I would have enjoyed it as much.
Final rating: ★★★★☆
#mmdreading: a book with an unreliable narrator or ambiguous ending
The Bibliophagist 