We were liars by E. Lockhart
Published: May 13th 2014 by Delacorte Press
Genre: Fiction, YA, Contemporary, Mystery
Pages: 242

“What fun
We’d had,
How beautiful
We were”

I picked this book because of the mystery behind the reviews, little did I know that this would be my driving force making it through the book.

I felt like I was floating on the surface of the story and I kept waiting for it to pull me in, but alas, that never happened. I just didn’t understand what was interesting about it. Except for one thing the way it was written.

I’ve seen blogs and reviewers both praise and hate on the writing style. Maybe it’s a love it or hate it kind of thing. Personally, I loved it.

“There was nowhere
Nowhere
Nowhere
Nowhere now to go
But down.”

The sentences are chopped and arranged in a staccato rhythm that I liked very well. In parts of the story anyways. It gave it a poetic, more romantic feel. Other than that, I was just reading to figure out what everybody was talking about. I had no interest in the story really, it just felt like teen babbel. This happened. That happened. I didn’t care about any of it.

“Life feels
Beautiful that day.
The four of us liars,
We have always been.
We will always be.

Without giving anything away, the story is about four kids that summer together and what happened one particular summer when they were all fifteen. What pains me is that I didn’t feel any camaraderie between them. They felt like strangers, both to me and to each other. And they didn’t lie at all! Ok, there were a couple of lies, but none that shocked me in any way.

I was underwhelmed, but I like the idea of the story. I guess the way it was written held a little too much mystery, and how the people in the story feel, what they hope and dream and how they cope with life shouldn’t be a mystery. I wasn’t given enough to care about any of them. All privileged spoiled brats with no depth.

I wish it kept some of the poetic breaks, and still was written differently, and damn it would have been a kick ass story. Maybe it was simplified because it’s a YA book, in that case, then I wish it would have been a regular fiction book with deeper characterization and it probably would have been one of the best books ever.