“Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair Family. No one is a criminal. No one is an addict. No one is a failure.”

So begins the story of Cadence Sinclair Eastman, the oldest grandchild of a family that is so filthy rich that don’t have to worry about anything at all; they own multiple estates across The United States and they spend their summers on a private island off the coast of Massachusetts (there’s a nice little map of the island inside!).

We Were Liars aims to explore the complicacies of broken families and the avarice of self-centred adults through the eyes of innocent teenagers and deals with multiple, interconnected relationships that are more complex than they appear, but given the nature of these relationships, the narrative could have been more compelling.

Initially, the book seems like any other simple, generic young adult novel about a teenager brooding about her blooming love life; there are indeed multiple moments where it does take that turn – Cadence falls in love with the idea of love, describing her love interest as “ambition and strong coffee” and is constantly complaining about her privilege. However, the story eventually takes a darker turn and the events that unfold towards the end are absolutely jaw-dropping shocking. Although the most of the book does not invoke too many emotions, the twist at the end is worth reading through the rest of it.

The prose is broken,

like this

sometimes,

which makes the book very laborious to read at times. Although it aims to give a glimpse of Cadence’s thought process and what it is like to be her – with her excruciating migraines and her extremely privileged family – it becomes rather difficult to sympathise with her. There are more dynamic characters that play a role in Cadence’s life, but there is very little that describes these characters and why they are the way they are.

There is a general sense of discomfort while reading this book – but it is hard to determine whether this stems from the broken sentences, the part of the plot that remains incomplete (forever) or the sense of what’s yet to come.

Personally, I think the book could have been more emotional and longer; I was ready to invest a lot more into it than I did. I wish I could write more about the book in this review, but there isn’t much to write about, unfortunately.

Overall, We Were Liars is a light read and very easy to fly through in spite of the dark ending. It’s worth a read if you’re a fan of simple plots and light-hearted young adult novels.