Saturday, April 26, 2014

Not-Really-a-Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery
Release Date: 13 May, 2014
Source: Delacorte Press via NetGalley
Goodreads | The Reading Room


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.
Review by Nara


This is one of those books that I'm honestly not sure how to review. I don't even want to say too much about it because it's one of those books where it's best to go in blind. Bigger impact that way. One thing I will say about it is that throughout the book there are little fairytales that the main character writes. They're variations of the same story and parallel the actual story of the book. Henceforth, I shall also attempt the fairytales. By the way, you should read the "blurb" (it's not really a blurb because it gives nothing away lol) of the book (or at least the last two lines) before reading my crappy fairytales, because otherwise some bits might not make sense.

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved to read. She loved to read books with great characters, books with swoonworthy romances, books with suspenseful mysteries, books with incredible worldbuilding. But most of all she wanted to read a book that would truly surprise her. She read and read and read and read, looking for a book that would have an unexpected ending. She came across a certain book: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. And was she surprised? She most definitely was. What exactly was this unexpected twist?
The main character was actually a hundred year old sparkly vampire and had fallen in love with a boy wizard who unfortunately had to leave the country to attend a magical school in England.
Delightful.

Once upon a time there was a mouse who lived in the palace library. He was a naughty mouse and loved to chew on the last pages of books. One day the princess entered the library, picked up a book and returned to her chambers. The next day, the mouse found the princess crying on the floor of the library and asked her "Princess, why are you crying?" 
The princess looked up and showed the mouse the book she had taken yesterday: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. She turned to the back of the book and the mouse saw that some pages were missing.
"I don't know how it ends," she replied.
The mouse may have been naughty, but he was also kind, and knew that no person should have to live life without knowing the ending of a good book. So he told her:
"The main character's name was drawn in a raffle, and so she had to go into a battle to the death with twenty three other contestants and only won because of some poisonous berries."
Delightful.


Okay, I'm sure you can see why I have no thoughts of ever becoming an author haha. Well, in any case, the fairytales in the actual book are infinitely better than the ones I've written here, so definitely grab a copy of the book as soon as possible!

p.s. yes, I realise this isn't really a review. Hence the title.


Really liked it

Ratings
Overall: 9/10
Plot: 4.5/5
Writing: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Cover: 4/5