We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

We are liars
We are beautiful and privileged
We are cracked and broken
A tale of love and romance
A tale of tragedy

Which are lies?
Which is truth?
You decide

First published: 2014

When We Were Liars first came out last year, my Bloglovin’ feed was flooded with raving reviews, but nobody wanted to say anything on what it was about. Mystery and intrigue all round! Spoiler alert: I’m not going to tell you much either. Which will probably make this quite a short review.

What I am going to tell you is that I ADORED this novel. I read it in about a day and a half (which is rare for me) because it was just so good and intriguing that I couldn’t stop. My expectations were high, and I was constantly waiting for some huge reveal since everybody was saying stuff like “you will never see this coming”. I wasn’t completely convinced that I wouldn’t, or that it would be that spectacular, but lemme tell ya: you will never see this coming (until the last few pages before the Big Reveal, at least). It will hit you like a brick. In a good way.

I was so excited to finally read this book, and I got even more excited when I turned to the first page and saw there was a map of an island (yeah, the story takes place on an island — I’ll give you that much). And on the page after that there’s a family tree. I love books with maps and family trees. We Were Liars was off to a good start!

The genius of the story was enhanced by the amazing writing. It’s just beautiful, really. I could feel the pain radiating from the pages and the short, piercing sentences Lockhart uses to tell the story. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read, and made the suspense of the story almost tangible.

This’ll most likely be the novel I’ll be recommending to everyone in 2015. Maybe I should just buy a stack of them, so I’ll have birthday presents to give to everyone throughout the year.

I’m trying to think of anything else I should say about this novel other than “read it and read it now”. It’s so hard to explain this novel without giving anything away. You really need to go in blind with this one. I love how everyone seems to agree on that, by the way. It’s like a pact or something. We Were Liars will leave you with a huge book hangover, but it’s worth it. It’s amazing. Go read it. I’m not doing it justice in this review, but just trust me on this one.