Reviews with content warning for Grief - We Were Liars Deluxe Edition

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Reviews tagging 'Grief'

We Were Liars Deluxe Edition by E. Lockhart

459 reviews

dakotajade's review against another edition

3.5

Content Warnings

catchinthrills's review against another edition

3.75

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

annie_brewer's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

dontthink2x's review against another edition

2.0

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I don't know if it is because I am already depressed, but I had a really hard time connecting with this book, and I found the ending to be really really depressing.

Content Warnings

heidi_downing's review against another edition

3.25

dark sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I have mixed feelings about this book. Is it actually gripping to read or is the page count just relatively short? Is the idea of an unreliable narrator properly thought out or is it just an excuse for messy plot construction that is - at times - clutching at straws? Is this book really unpacking the complex topics of family tensions, deep rooted prejudices and patriarchs… or is it simply a bunch of privileged rich kids frolicking on an island for over 200 pages making it extremely unrelatable for the vast amount of readership? This book is fine, quite dark in places making it very uncomfortable, but consistently average. The twist at the end is slightly unsatisfying as though it is an easy solution for what has surmounted from a messy plot. The most intriguing sections are definitely the fairytale style interludes that always leave readers with a biting social commentary.

Content Warnings

hello_lovely13's review against another edition

2.5

emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This wasn't a bad book; it was just fine and unmemorable. The writing style was okay, but sometimes it was hard to tell where in the timeline we were for a little bit, so those jumps in time were sometimes a bit startling. The plot twist is fucked up and sad, and I did get emotional when Cady was talking about its aftermath and each of the liars.

I didn't like that the rest of the liars for the present time were ghosts, and that that was part of the reveal. It felt a bit lazy. The fact that the liars burned the house down was foreshadowed well, but the fact that three of them died and were now ghosts was not.

For most of the book, I was honestly a bit bored because I never felt a pressing need to know what had happened. Also, since the present day had a time limit (Cadence was only staying at the island for 4 weeks), there should have been some tension included in the passage of time, leading up to the 4 weeks being up, but there wasn't. I did like some of the writing, and the ideas it brought up, such as when Gat mentioned that he was like Heathcliff to the grandfather. There were the stereotypical, somewhat cliche, discussions on rich people's privilege and materialism, but some of the commentary was done in an interesting way. I am sure that, for the time, it felt much more revolutionary and new than it does reading it today. I am still unsure how I feel about the constantly changing story of the three daughters; the concept is interesting, but the execution didn't quite stand out to me. I thought that this was an okay read, but I am also glad that I didn't spend money on this. I definitely will not be reading the second book because I don't care enough (also, everyone says that it is such a let down anyway).

Content Warnings

redstringraven's review against another edition

3.5

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

i was kind of worried i'd have to give this book a lower rating; the first half of it felt slow, sometimes frustrating and confusing, but there was just enough to keep me interested and invested in getting answers. about three fourths of the way through, i got them. then it was a lot of "oh my god", some of the prior issues i'd had made sense, and i'd say overall the 'revelation' and ending was satisfying enough.

unfortunately, that first half of the book does keep the rating "lowish". the jumbled timeline might have been easier to keep up with if i'd had a physical copy rather than an audiobook, so i won't put too much pressure on that. i also struggled to care about the main 'pairing' for a number of reasons, so whenever the focus was on that, i was uninvested and ready for it to move on to something else.

if this were out of 10, it'd be a 7 (overall positive feelings, might come back to it just to re-read with the knowledge i now have). the narrator also did a fantastic job in the final chapters. like, she did great overall, but you could feel those last few chapters.

SPOILER TIME BELOW

things i liked:

i really loved mirren and johnny. my love for mirren was more or less immediate, but johnny took a bit more warming up to.
the twist genuinely took me off guard. i'd written down a handful of suspicions for what could have happened or why gat and cady couldn't be together. i was devastated along with cady when she remembered the dogs had died in the fire. so, when you get to that semi-final fairytale, and the witch starts handing out matches, there's this deep feeling of dread that starts to form in your stomach. it was effective, and a nightmare to think about.
the overall reflection toward the end of the book was very nice. i still can't quite tell if the liars were actual... ghosts that cady was interacting with, or if they were more something she was only experiencing in her own head. i guess it doesn't matter? i don't remember if she ever caused uncomfortable moments in the "present day" sections by mentioning she'd been hanging out with the liars to the other family members.
i liked the concept of writing phrases on the back of your hand. THAT was a "teenage thing" that felt nostalgic or familiar to me (bringing this up due to other things i'll mention below). and i like both that the book ends with her writing a phrase on her hands, and with a nice one as well.

what didn't jive:

like i said, the first half of the book felt... slow. and it was frustrating in the sense that so many scenes kind of felt like they went nowhere, and even with the perspective of how things end, i think the book could have been a bit tighter. the only thing that really kept me engaged WAS the possibility of answers being dangled in front of me like a carrot on a stick. again, i liked mirren and johnny well enough, but most everyone else fell quite flat. considering who's left in the end, i'm kind of bummed there was so little exploration of her relationship with her remaining family members. her only real relationships were with the liars. that being said:
i very much did not care about gat/cady. it made the moments where she'd be like "my gat" kind of exhausting or dramatic in that teenage life-or-death kind of way that, yes, i'll admit i never experiences and therefore can't really understand. i have so many notes in my journal consisting of variations of "go away, gat" or "shut up, gat". his behavior DOES make more sense once you get to the twist, but not enough so that i believe in how much they cared for each other or that they were in love or whatever. out of all the liars, her relationship with gat felt the weakest.
some of the prose was quite melodramatic on cady's end. albeit, i'm sure this could also be connected back to her being a teenager and my personal eye-rolling comes from that inability to understand, again. like, saying that she gets her blood everywhere as a way of just saying she's sad. it was... interesting? the first time, but i quickly got a bit irritated with it.

yep! that's all i can really think of right now. this one's been on my list for a while, and even though i was discouraged and kind of frustrated in the first half, i'm super glad i stuck it out and got to finish it. maybe i'll circle back to it and find that with Knowledge™, the earlier sections will be a bit less of a drag.

Content Warnings