A review by its_madi
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Wow, that was… a lot of nothing. Like… so much nothing. Universe, when I said I wanted a short light read, I didn’t mean the epitome of “no thoughts head empty”.

First off, none of the characters have any charm or personality at all. They are from a rich family and they are done with their family's materialistic ways. That’s it. That is the extent of their personalities. Plus all of their interactions are just so weird? They say things like

”I’m going to ask you about the sexual intercourse later,” I warn her.”

and

“I have to act like everything’s okay until I can find a troll. Then I’ll kill him to death and get my normal feet back.”

They also used the word “suboptimal” a lot, and it was played off as an inside joke, but it was never really explained why? I think the author was trying to write some quirky dialogue, and it might have worked in another novel, but here it just fell on its face because I was already annoyed with its characters.

Also, unless I’m missing something, aren’t Gat and Johnny step brothers? And Cadence and Johnny are cousins? So that would make Gat and Cadence related right? 

😳. 🤮.

The plot is also really boring. The MC Cadence has amnesia, and she’s trying to figure out what happened in the summer that she was 15. But she does absolutely NOTHING to solve any of this. She even knows that something is up, because she remarks that people keep lying to her, but she doesn’t even try to investigate it? At all? All she does is walk around the island until she gets a memory, and it’s as boring as it sounds.

And the plot twist was, fine I guess? I will give it credit that I didn’t see it coming, and thinking back it was foreshadowed quite a bit (the mom telling Cadence to hang out with the Littles, having her eat with the Littles and not with the Liars. etc.), but I didn’t care enough about these characters to care that they died. I was more upset about the dogs.


Now this is probably one of my least hated 1 star books, because I didn’t actively hate anything (except for the GatXCadence relationship). But that’s just the problem. I didn’t hate anything because there was nothing there at all. This was just an empty book. If a short read and a rich family’s drama and an unreliable narrator sounds great to you, by all means take a look. But it just wasn’t for me.

1/5
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