Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: May 13th 2014
Source: Netgalley
Rating : 2.5 /5
AMAZON / BOOKDEPOSITORY
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
My thoughts
Liar, Liars, pants on fire . Fire ... FiRe FIREeeeeeEeee !!!! *mad cackle*
This lovely summer abode is full of half truths, half lies and loss somewhere, here and there. I'm not allowed to go into specifics so let start what I'm able to mention.
We were liars consists of 90% of nothing that happens. Yes there are conversations between characters ,flashbacks and king leer fairy tale-esque chapters. The excitement only happened in the last 40 odd pages. I have enjoyed slow moving or plot lacking books in the past. And in most cases my love of the characters are the reason for this . I can not say this while reading we were liars . And here I say I did not feel attached to any of them . They are spoiled rich kids and their spoiled fucking family ( pardon for my language ) . I felt meh towards the MC.
The writing
I have grown fond of lyrical and poetic prose. But miss Lockhart did not do it for me. I do have to add that I loved the king leer chapters. I've recently studied it in English class and it was nice to see it used in someway.
I did however not like the description of the Indian male love interest. I don't know what's she means with it but could she not have worded it differently . A sentence from the galley
"He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee " 5%
Maybe I'm overreacting . Does she mean coffee as a likeness to the darker skin tone.
Romance
The romance is nothing special but useful to me personally. I used my real life crush to in the place of the love interest ( btw my straight crush is Indian also ). And used him in the story to get over my unrequited love/ crush thingy . The big reveal and the circumstances were used to get over it. #amIMorbid ?. Unrequited love thingy is a bitch . So that's something personal . #stopFalling4thestr8'ies
To wrap this up I found this book pretentious. I'm not ashamed to be the black sheep and also will not pick an other book John Green praises and blurbs. I've not read any green book but I'm 100% I will not like it as well. The same with Rainbow Rowell . I do however maybe want to try Lockhart 's previous books . I did not like it but you might . A lot of people surely do.
I think the hype around the book doesn't help sometimes, but I am still interesting in reading this one!
ReplyDeleteMissie @ A Flurry of Ponderings
Huh, well that's too bad. Maybe she meant 'strong coffee' as bold... so he was ambitious and bold? I haven't really even heard of this book, though.
ReplyDeleteI've really loved Lockhart's Ruby Oliver Quartet and her standalone, The Disreputable History of Frankie... so I was quite looking forward to this one. I haven't cracked open my ARC yet as I'm really not a fan of the unreliable narrator and am sorry to see this didn't work out for you -- a lot of readers seem to be disappointed with this one, actually. I do hope you try Lockhart's other titles and wind up enjoying those, Roro!
ReplyDeleteI would have enjoyed the King Lear references too. It was one of the plays that I studied my college literature course on Shakespeare (best class EVER). Had to write a massive term paper on it and everything. The rest . . . you and I can be black sheep together, my friend. While I've had more luck with Green than with Rowell, I'm still one of the few that isn't completely enthralled with them. So far, what I've read of Green's hasn't been pretentious (he's more endearingly earnest than anything else), but Rowell definitely can be, and I have ZERO interest in reading another author with that predilection . . .
ReplyDeleteYou should probably check out Rainbow Rowell's books, if John Green is not the type of author you like. She's awesome, honest. This book is not even on my radar so I probably won't be picking it up anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this book and it is a shame you didn't like it my dear. However, I do get where you are coming from. Sometimes a book that have had received the "green bump" makes it worse for me!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing & the honest review! :)
Alex @ The Shelf Diaries
Amazing review, Roro :D Thank you so much for sharing and being honest. <3 You are awesome. And aw. I'm so sorry you didn't like this book more. I don't blame you, though :) I'm not sure if it would be for me. Hm. But maybe someday :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for commenting on my blog. <3
Love, Carina @ Carina's Books
I've enjoyed Lockhart's books in the past, so I think this might work better for me. Thanks for your honest thoughts though, Roro! I know what you mean about slow plots - I don't mind them as long as I love the characters. It's a shame you couldn't enjoy them here.
ReplyDeleteSorry this didn't work for you, roro. Great honest review. :)
ReplyDeleteRoro,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review! Honest reviews are always appreciated when deciding what books to read next. Hopefully the next book is a great book for you
So sorry this let you down Roro. I have it and still plan to give it a go, but I set the bar low due to all the hype.
ReplyDeleteI just put this one down on my Top Ten Tuesday, I have heard so much about this book this summer. I am definitely curious to check it out for myself.
ReplyDeleteKristin @ Young Adult Book Haven